Cheating, Robberies, and Melania Trump's Whereabouts | Ep. 46

Norman Chad delivers a sharp, passionate critique of cheating across the gambling world, from poker tables to horse racing, calling it outright theft and demanding stronger accountability through a unified tribunal. He tackles cases like Zhao Xingtong’s return to snooker after a betting ban and questions the ethics of horse racing itself. Blending outrage with humor, Chad shares quirky stories—including his odd habit of only drinking tomato juice on planes—making a powerful case for integrity in gambling while keeping things entertaining.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro: No More Whips in Horse Racing
• 0:35 The Cheating Problem in Poker
• 5:48 Snooker Scandal and Match Fixing
• 10:39 Card Room Robberies in LA
• 15:26 Kentucky Derby and Horse Racing Ethics
• 19:45 Flight Beverages and Show Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I got a better idea. Rather than allowing the whip to be used up to six times, how about if they don't use the whip at all? Everyone's got the same advantage, disadvantage no whip. Actually, I just thought this is incredibly out of the box. I just thought of something else in this regard. How about? How about if we end the sport of horse racing? Norman Chad, norman Chad. Welcome to Gambling Mad with Norman Chad. I am Norman Chad, coming up on the program today.

Speaker 1: 0:44

There are people cheating in poker, there are people cheating in snooker and there are people cheating in horse racing. Like they say, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. Gambling Mad, as always, brought to you by Fritos Fritos, picked fresh off of Central California trees every morning, delivered directly to your local retailer every afternoon, and by the refreshing taste of Fresca Fritos and Fresca. It's a meal. Nobody, nobody, will cheat anymore in poker from this day on. On my watch, poker is a great game and virtually nobody who plays ever cheats, but poker still has a problem in dealing with those who do.

Speaker 1: 1:38

I'm going to sound like the new FBI here. You will be hunted, you will be caught, you will be arrested. Okay, okay, we can't arrest you, but we can shame you and we can suspend you, and that we will do. If you can't do the crime, no, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. If you can't take the heat, don't be the cheat. So what's so hard about that concept? When someone cheats in poker, someone else always says, yeah, but yeah, but what?

Speaker 1: 2:15

Here are three common responses I hear when we talk about cracking down on cheats. One what they did wasn't that big of a deal. Two oh, we're talking about something that happened a long time ago. Why should it matter? And three everybody else was doing it. So why do we single out one particular individual? Okay, let's consider each of these briefly. Number one what they did wasn't that big of a deal. Okay, sure, there are misdemeanors and there are felonies. If it's just a one-time thing, that is, a minor offense, they get some leniency. If it's a repeat offender, you throw them away. Toss away the key for a long, long time.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Cheating is cheating, small or large. There has to be accountability. Number two we're talking about a long time ago. Why should it matter? Really, if you commit a murder 32 years ago but no one finds out about it till now, does this make you any less of a murderer. You still need to be liable. You still need to be held accountable for your actions. And number three everybody else was doing it.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Why do we single out one person? This one takes the cake with me. You know, I don't want to hear about. Back in the day there was a Wild West mentality and no one thought twice about doing something. That was obviously wrong. That is weak sauce. Hey, if you are living in a cul-de-sac where everyone is murdering everyone else, does that make the murders any more acceptable? Don't tell me it depends on the cul-de-sac and don't tell me it depends on your neighbors. You people make me sick. Everybody's doing it is a defense.

Speaker 1: 3:57

We always hear about multi-accounting in online poker. What is multi-accounting? What's the most common form of multi-accounting? For those of you who don't know, it's someone who enters more than one account into an online poker tournament, so they're actually playing as if they're two different players. Four different players, six different players. This is clearly improper, no less so just because it's common. Okay, let me see if I can explain this another way to a poker community that continually finds ways to make excuses for the cheaters. When you break into someone's home and you take a flat screen and a bunch of liquor and some of their jewelry you have stolen from them. When you are cheating in a poker game, you are stealing from other people. It's that simple poker game. You are stealing from other people. It's that simple.

Speaker 1: 4:47

I'm not sure why there's some delineation between these two acts, but in poker we constantly are told that cheating comes with the territory and then we continually dismiss it. Here's another brain dead area of poker thinking. I get tired of the thought that just because you cheat online, you should be able to play live in a card room. Or if you cheat in a card room, why can't you play online? Who comes up with this stuff? If a poker player cheats online, he should not be allowed to play live. If a poker player cheats on Monday, he shouldn't be allowed to play on Tuesday because it's a different day. If he cheats over there, he shouldn't be able to cheat over here. It's cheating wherever you do it. It is poker madness that we do not recognize this.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Do I have your attention yet? So how do we adjudicate the cheating? It's a difficult question, you know. I kind of like the idea that the offenders have to walk around in a t-shirt that says I cheated in poker and then below that it lists the date in which they'll be allowed back into the game. Those could sell pretty nicely.

Speaker 1: 5:57

You know the problem in poker you got myriad platforms, myriad operators in myriad settings. There's no national or international commission that rules over everybody as best as possible. We need casino and online operators, in the best interests of their customers, to agree to set some guidelines in regard to the bad actors. If you commit an impropriety in card room A and they bar you, you shouldn't be able to go over to online site B and play. It's hard to monitor, it's hard to regulate, it's hard to figure out who is cheating when they are alleged to cheat. So we could use a tribunal you know the equivalent of a Supreme Court to hear the cases and for those decisions to be upheld in as many venues as possible. The tribunal would be a rotating group of industry veterans and respected poker pros. I personally, I personally have no interest in being part of this Supreme Court, but I got to tell you I wouldn't mind being. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature and you will atone. If that doesn't scare them straight, I don't know what will. Okay, I've got cheating on my mind.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Let's go to the World Snooker Championship just held in Sheffield, england. Zhao Xingtong became the first Asian player to win the world title. The 27-year-old Chinese pro beat Welsh three-time world champion, mark Williams, by 18 frames to 12. This was a huge, huge story in snooker. This was a huge, huge story in Snooker. Zhao is an incredible talent and Snooker has become incredibly popular in China. However, there is a hitch. Zhao had served a 20-month ban as part of a match-fixing scandal. Now he didn't throw the matches, he didn't fix the matches, but he bet on matches that he knew were going to be rigged. Several other Chinese pros are now banned for life for fixing the matches. Zhao was banned from January 2023 until September 2024.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Now, if I were running the Supreme Court of Snooker, I probably would have given Zal a lifetime ban, like the others got. You know it's reminiscent. I don't know if some of you from history might recall the old Shoeless Joe Jackson case in the 1919 World Series Black Sox scandal Shoeless Joe, who played for the White Sox. He didn't throw the games, but he knew about the fix. He was a threat to the integrity of the game and the baseball commissioner tossed him out of the game for life with the others. Snooker should have given Zal the game's death penalty, and poker, poker could learn from this. If you cheat the game, you are banned from the game. All right then. Well, what other cheating do we want to root out today? While we're on a roll, I take care of all family business right now. Huh, trump, no, no, no, no, no, no. So he was gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar. That's not cheating. It might be a bribe, it might be your garden variety corruption, it might violate the US Constitution, but it is not cheating. Now if he were to say you know, manipulate the crypto market in broad daylight to line his pockets, that might be cheating, but he's not going to do that. He's our president.

Speaker 1: 10:17

The late great Doyle Brunson, known as the godfather of poker, once was what they called a Texas road gambler. This was back in the 1960s, before card rooms were widespread. Texas Dolly and his buddies would travel throughout the Southwest Texas, oklahoma, looking for good private poker games. This was not an easy way to make a living, as Brunson would tell it One, you had to find the game. Two, you had to beat the game. And then three, you had to get out of the game without being robbed or beaten up or arrested.

Speaker 1: 10:54

I thought about Daryl Brunson the other day when there was a news story that emerged. Two Los Angeles men allegedly robbed LA card room customers on at least 15 occasions in 2023 after they left the casino and actually I have frequented I've been to all four of the card rooms where this was occurring where they were targeting victims the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, california, the Commerce Casino in Commerce, the Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens and the Hustler Casino in Gardena. The crooks did not touch Hollywood Park in Inglewood, where I play, because none of us has any money over there. So, according to the indictment, the two suspects, 22-year-old Juan Gabriel Gonzalez and 21-year-old Derek Nathan Lopez old Juan Gabriel Gonzalez and 21 year old Derek Nathan Lopez would follow the victim's vehicles, leaving the card rooms and then eventually confront them demanding money or chips, while occasionally smashing their car windows. They stole more than $270,000 in cash and casino chips over these 15 incidents in a six month period, and it and it was pretty simple how it worked. The perpetrators would come into the casino. They would either gamble with or watch potential victims. They then would identify a big winner. Big winner cashes out, they file that person out to the casino parking lot, the two men get in separate cars. They would drive alongside the victim until they came to an off-ramp, say on a freeway, and then, after they came to the off-ramp, they would box in the victims with their two cars and the perpetrators then approach the vehicle, pull a gun and rob the motorist.

Speaker 1: 12:39

It's a tough, tough town and actually I got to tell you it's tough to make a buck here. This made me think of a couple of things, opposite ends of the spectrum. I live near the airport here, lax, and when I get home my flight arrives and I want to take a taxi back. It's only about two miles. So when I get into the taxi line and I get into the cab and I tell them where I'm going, sometimes they want to throw me out immediately. They, immediately. They also have an attitude because it's going to be a really small fare. You know they've waited. They've been staging and waiting in line for a long time to get a fare. They're just going to go two miles. That's a long wait to make 20 bucks on a fare when they can get 50 or 60 bucks on a longer fare. I kind of feel badly for them.

Speaker 1: 13:23

It's the nature of Los Angeles On the flip side of the coin, and I'm not trying to defend these card room crooks at all but I want to tell you why it's tough. Los Angeles is a massive area, okay, so sometimes you would follow the person coming out of the casino parking lot to a freeway somewhere. Sometimes you might follow them all the way home and when they get out of their car at home Then you rob them. But you don't know how far they're going. In LA you can come from anywhere, so it might be just a 10 or 15 minute drive, but you might have bad luck that day as a criminal and you have to drive an hour or more until you can get that vehicle to stop. It's a tough town to you know. Go to the card rooms in Fresno or Bakersfield Much easier prey. I apologize, fresno, I apologize Bakersfield. I'm not trying to send crooks up to you, we're just doing a podcast here.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Does First Lady Melania Trump live in the nation's capital? Not really. The most popular question among White House staff these days is where is Melania? Let's go to our national map to uncover the mystery of Melania. So the question is where is Melania Since Donald Trump's inauguration day. He has been in office about 115 days, according to the New York Times. In that four-month period, melania has only been at the White House a total of 15 days. Where has she been otherwise? She's been up in New York at Trump Tower 50 days. She's been down in Mar-a-Lago, away from the Trumpster, for another 50 days. Trump pretty much is by himself most of the time. He sees Diet Coke more than he sees Melania. And besides being in Trump Tower all that time and in Mar-a-Lago, melania also went out to Phoenix for a one-day trip. She likes hot weather and, by the way, if you're in Phoenix this weekend, it's going to be a hot one 118 degrees in the shade, traffic and weather on the fives all weekend.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Now let's go back to the desk. We are running a little bit behind time on the show today, so let me just quickly pose an important question for my gambling mad audience. We're not going to have time to discuss it in any detail this week, but it's food for thought, sort of like a homework project for next week. Give it some thought, we'll talk about it a little for next week. Give it some thought, we'll talk about it a little more next week. All right. What is the most dangerous threat to the future of America? A Stephen Miller in the morning, b Stephen Miller in the afternoon, c Stephen Miller in the evening, or D Stephen Miller dreaming overnight of what he's going to do the next day?

Speaker 1: 16:30

Sovereignty was the winner of this year's Kentucky Derby. The jockey who rode the horse to victory, junior Alvarado, was fined $62,000 by the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority for his actions in that race. What actions you might ask For striking his horse with his riding crop too many times? The regulations state a jockey can whip the horse in their hindquarters a maximum of six times. Alvarado went to the whip eight times on sovereignty at Churchill Downs. According to the rules, by the way, if Alvarado had whipped sovereignty 10 or more times, it would have meant a disqualification. Sovereignty was two whippings away from having the Kentucky Derby victory taken away. The riding crop rule went into effect in 2022, and this was the ninth time Alvarado has been penalized. The rules are there to protect the well-being and safety of the horse.

Speaker 1: 17:43

You know, if that's the case, I got a better idea. Rather than allowing the whip to be used up to six times, how about if they don't use the whip at all. Everyone's got the same advantage, disadvantage no whip. Actually, I just thought this is incredibly out of the box. I just thought of something else in this regard. How about if we end the sport of horse racing? In my long history around stables and barns and whatnot, I have yet to meet a horse who has volunteered to race. I have known ponies and geldings who would rather work as an actuary than work as a racehorse. No lie, trust me, you know actuaries. Actuaries have better hours, they're treated better than horses and they get all the great ladies D-gens gonna D-gen.

Speaker 1: 18:43

An eight-year-old boy in Lexington, kentucky, ordered 70,000 lollipops on Amazon. Let me repeat that I don't make this stuff up. An eight-year-old boy in Lexington, kentucky, ordered 70,000 lollipops on Amazon. His mother was not happy. Holly LaFavre stepped out of her house to go to church one Sunday morning and found 22 cases of dum-dums on her front. Porch Mom, my suckers are here. Her son, liam, shouted from his scooter over on the sidewalk. Liam had been fooling around on his mother's phone and ordered all the lollipops at a cost of $4,200. Liam told his mom that he wanted to throw a carnival for all of his friends and he meant just to reserve the order and then check back with her instead of actually placing the order. Honest mistake by a kid. All's well that ends well for everyone, but Liam. Amazon gave Holly LaFavre a refund and even allowed her to keep the lollipops which she donated to schools and charities and to her church, and the kid with the smartphone ended up without a dum-dum.

Speaker 1: 20:02

Before we wrap up, I'm going to say this one time and one time, only One time and one time only. When I am in flight, and only when I am in flight, I order tomato juice in the morning and ginger ale in the afternoon. Am I the only one who does this? Okay, I never have tomato juice in my house on the ground, but put me at 35,000 feet, and it's always my choice of breakfast beverage Tomato juice, no ice. And, by the way, what's the matter these days with Southwest and Delta Airlines? They only serve Bloody Mary mix, not tomato juice. I don't want a mix, I want pure tomato juice concentrate. Meanwhile, come afternoon, I always order a ginger ale though I never again have that in my house and I want Canada dry.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Too many airlines these days are sticking to me with with Seagram's or Schweppes. First, they take away our pillows and blankets. Now they're taking away our can of dry. What's next? Pay toilets on board. Actually, I think Spirit Airlines already does that.

Speaker 1: 21:25

That will do it for another edition of Norman Chad with Gambling Matt. Let's keep it. We can keep it. We will keep it. Let's, let's, let's do it again, but we can keep that, I have no problem. You know, once, uh, on a famous moment on Monday night, football, uh, the co-host of the show, frank Gifford, who would be the first one person to speak, instead of saying and I'm not making this up uh, good evening everyone. Show Frank Gifford, who would be the first person to speak, instead of saying and I'm not making this up, good evening everyone, I'm Frank Gifford. He literally went good evening, frank Gifford, I'm everyone. It can happen to anyone. I just did it on tape, he did it live. That will do it for another edition of Gambling Mad with Norman Chad. Hope to see you next time. And remember, if you're going to roll the dice, make sure they're loaded.

Speaker 1: 22:17

I decided to take in Sunday church. For the first time in a long time, I could walk to the church. So I figured it was good exercise, good to get outdoors and good to maybe spiritually heal, but nothing was really connecting with me at the service. Nothing was speaking to me. After about 45 minutes or so I decided to leave.

Speaker 1: 22:38

But when I got to the double doors in the back of the chapel, two burly guys were standing there. They looked like bouncers. One of them opened a small metal box and asked for a contribution. I said awkwardly, no, thank you. But they were blocking the exit and they weren't moving. I wasn't paying. I wanted to tell them did you hear that sermon? You should be paying us to listen to that. Hooey, and what? Suddenly it's a $15 cover charge, two drink minimum. To get closer to the almighty Lord. I finally bolted past them. To get closer to the Almighty Lord, I finally bolted past them. The church and organized religion have caused more human suffering than any institution in recorded history. So, as God is my witness, the next time I must go to a church or a synagogue or a mosque or a temple or any house of worship of any kind, I will go gambling mad.

Speaker 2: 23:39

Gambling Mad with Norman Chad is written by Norman Chad and ghostwritten by Norman Chad. Executive producers are John Scheinberg and Rick Barriodil. Produced by Norman Chad and Rick Barriodil. Our associate producers are Brie Coore and Rick Barrio-Dill. Produced by Norman Chad and Rick Barrio-Dill. Our associate producers are Brie Coorey and Asher Freidberg, and edited by Asher Freidberg, with studio facilities at 360 Pod Studios, Beverly Hills.