How a Bookmaker and a Whiz Kid Took On a DDOS-based Online Extortion Attack PART I

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Saturday, Nov. 22, 2003, 7:57 a.m. Origins of an Onslaught
The e-mail that started the online extortion demands began, "Your site is under attack," and it gave Mickey Richardson two choices: "You can send us $40K by Western Union [and] your site will be protected not just this weekend but for the next 12 months," or, "If you choose not to pay...you will be under attack each weekend for the next 20 weeks, or until you close your doors."
Richardson runs BetCris.com, an online wagering site, one of hundreds of sites ensconced in Costa Rica that take bets from Americans (and others around the world) without concern for U.S. bookmaking laws. Richardson received the e-mail just as he and his competitors were preparing for the year's busiest wagering season. With pro and college football, pro and college basketball and other sports in full swing, and with Thanksgiving and Christmas about to create plenty of free time, BetCris and the others stood to rake in millions over the holidays. Richardson was even planning an advertising blitz for the season to drive new traffic to his site.
If BetCris went down, he knew his customers would find another online bookmaker, "which will cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost wagers and customers," the extortionists reminded him.
Despite all that, the e-mail didn't have the fearsome effect on Richardson that the extortionists hoped it would. He just asked his network administrator, Glenn Lebumfacil, if they should be concerned. "I said—God, in hindsight, what an idiot—I said, 'We should be safe. I think our network is nice and tight,'" recalls Lebumfacil.
As a precaution, Richardson alerted his ISP, but essentially, he says, "We kind of fluffed it off." The veteran bookmaker didn't panic because, in fact, he had dealt with online extortionists before. Two years earlier, hackers crashed BetCris.com with a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, and then demanded by e-mail a $500 protection fee in eGold (an online form of trading bullion). Richardson paid without a second thought. Compared to downtime, $500 was trivial.
That first attack got his attention, though. Richardson consulted another industry veteran who confessed to having a similar problem, and who told Richardson to call a consultant named Barrett Lyon in Sacramento, Calif. Lyon didn't come to BetCris's offices—he had no interest in baby-sitting infrastructure in Costa Rica—but he did recommend some off-the-shelf products that had recently been developed specifically to fight DoS attacks. Lyon thought (actually he hoped) that he'd never hear from them again. Richardson and Lebumfacil were confident they had protected themselves.

When the attack finally came on that Saturday in November, sometime after that first e-mail but before 11:30 a.m., BetCris crashed hard. The off-the-shelf products Lyon had recommended survived less than 10 minutes. BetCris's ISP crashed, and then the ISP for BetCris's ISP crashed. Richardson ran to the IT department, where Lebumfacil was watching the biggest DoS attack he'd ever seen. He remembers feeling sick to his stomach.
At 1:03 p.m., another e-mail arrived. "I guess you have decided to fight instead of making a deal. We thought you were smart.... You have 1 hour to make a deal today or it will cost you $50K to make a deal on Sunday." Then they knocked BetCris.com offline again.
The Extortion Problem
We know this about online extortion: It happens. Evidence of its prevalence or damage is speculative and anecdotal but useful nonetheless in guiding CSOs to understand the nature of the crime. Anecdotally, experts from law enforcement and information security consultants believe that perhaps one in 10 companies has been threatened with online extortion; in one survey by Carnegie Mellon University researchers, 17 out of 100 small and midsize businesses reported being targeted. Interviews with security consultants and industry players suggest that as many as three out of four cases of online extortion are never reported. Maybe a third or more of targeted companies pay extortion fees, drawing the money from disaster funds, acceptable loss budgets or insurance. Consultants like to tell stories of being called for help after companies pay protection money twice.
For CSOs and CISOs, it would be easy to view online extortion as indigenous to gambling sites, the karmic price one pays for choosing that line of work. It would also be wrong. True, the Thanksgiving-week attack on BetCris fronted a wave of extortion against gaming sites, but that wave has since ebbed (in part, we'll see, due to BetCris) while the online extortion phenomenon has not.
In fact, that wave of attacks against gaming sites, starting in late 2003 and going through mid-2004, appears to have been a training ground for extortionists. Now they've moved on, applying what they learned, along with more sophisticated technical tools, to attack far less prepared and more mainstream targets—such as online payment services, foreign currency exchanges and financial services companies. Here is a good rule of thumb: Anyone who could lose money by being offline is a potential online extortion target. And the more one stands to lose, the bigger the bull's-eye.
Yet you probably haven't thought much about online extortion unless you've been targeted. As with fraud, a certain shame attaches itself to victims, especially those who choose to pay protection fees. Even antiextortion consultants participate in a code of silence. One such company contacted for this story declined to comment "because we feel it brings attention to the crime."
That's why we're telling this story—to bring attention to the crime. To enable readers to learn from a real-world case what worked in an extortion crisis and what didn't. To sort out the choices one has before the choices one has are dictated by an e-mail.
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2003: Pleas for Time—and Help
Richardson and Lebumfacil decided to reply to the extortionists' e-mail. They stalled. Lebumfacil, the network administrator, recalls the pleading tone of their missives. (They sent several.) They'd say that they would lose their jobs if they didn't get more time. Richardson reluctantly admits that he feigned a family emergency and begged the extortionists to give him time until he could return from that to set up a payment.
Meanwhile, Lebumfacil and the IT team tried in vain to stop the attacks and get BetCris back online. The equation was simple: Downtime equals lost revenue. Richardson says the company stood to lose $1.16 every second, as much as $100,000 per day.
He tracked down Barrett Lyon, who was in Phoenix helping another company fight off a DoS attack. Lyon told Richardson to call the off-the-shelf equipment vendor. (He did. No help.) Call the ISP. (It couldn't help, either.)
Lyon says he sensed desperation, and he was right. Lebumfacil, who had a 5-month-old daughter at home, says, "I thought about losing my job. I thought about the company going out of business. There was a lot of money on the line. It was a constant state of panic." That night he tried in vain to sleep and says he even entertained the fantasy that "everything could be OK in the morning."
But it wasn't OK in the morning. At 10:01 a.m. on Sunday, Richardson got another e-mail. This one sounded less like a threat and more like the start of negotiations. "Dear Mickey, The attacks have been stopped 2 hours prior to the last e-mail. Your site is back up for most and should be up for all shortly...P.S. We will e-mail you Monday."
Still, Richardson wasn't encouraged. The site wasn't up at all; it only came to life sporadically and for short periods of time. No one knows for sure, but the extortionists might have stopped their attack. At some point, the downtime was the result of BetCris's ISP deciding to null-route the site's traffic. Null-routing means the ISP collects all of the traffic going to a site and drives it into the ground. This frees up the ISP's pipes when a site it hosts is receiving massive amounts of DoS attack traffic; even if the extortionists stopped attacking, the site would stay down.

Confusion and stress reigned. Richardson called Lyon again. This time, Lyon agreed to help. "I was thinking this would be a big mess for me," he says. "But they had no one to turn to. I knew by Sunday I couldn't pass them off any longer." Lyon flew back to Sacramento and started working on the problem. He, too, had dealt with online extortionists before.
Sunday, July 21, 2002: Flashback: The Kid Who Saved Vegas Sports Books
From a low-slung building off of Flamingo Drive in Las Vegas, a company called Don Best delivers the ever-fluctuating odds on sporting events to most of the glitzy sports books on the Strip. All of this is done by computers, and late in the evening on July 21, files started moving around one of those computers by themselves. An employee working late called Don Best's general manager, Rick Allec, and asked him what to do. Allec told him to turn off the server. The employee couldn't, so he literally pulled the plug out of the wall.
Allec rushed to the office, and soon he was holding the printout of an extortion e-mail demanding $200,000. He replied—and stalled—just as Richardson would a year later.
The next day, a security consultant told Allec to call Barrett Lyon for help. "When Barrett showed up," Allec recalls, "I remember thinking, There's no way he can help us."
Lyon was 23 and looked at least that young. His blond hair offset a tan, handsome face. Allec says Lyon looked like he had given up a day of surfing to swing by and help out.
Lyon had never taken a computer science class. His degree from California State University, Sacramento, was in philosophy, applied law and ethics. And yet he was cocky about computers. Once, he bet some friends he could map the entire Internet in a day. They scoffed. He launched Opte.org and mapped the entire Internet in a day. (Sort of. The open-source project is ongoing.) "People have never worried about my background," Lyon says, "because when they ask questions, I can answer them."
He had to win over Allec quickly, since Allec's customers were irate. A sports book forced to turn away wagers is like a bank turning down deposits. "We were down for three hours at one point, which was absolutely unheard of in our business," says Allec. "But Barrett made me comfortable. He would say, 'They're going to do this next, and we'll fight it this way.' And every time, he was exactly right. It was almost eerie."

At the time, off-the-shelf anti-DoS hardware wasn't readily available. Lyon's solution for Don Best was not to turn back the attack, but to scale Don Best's infrastructure of Web servers, load balancers and other hardware so that it was bigger than the volume of attack traffic coming in. "We basically built a humongous Web farm in, like, four days," Lyon says.
It proved to be enough to fend off the extortionists, who were sloppy. They attacked during the slowest gambling season, when the mark had less impetus to capitulate under pressure. They also asked for so much money that Allec didn't immediately determine that paying would be his smartest option.
Within a week, it was over. Except—and this impressed Allec the most—"a couple of weeks later I get a call from Barrett, and he says, 'I know who attacked your site.'"
Lyon says, "I could have left it alone, but I had gotten attached, and I started investigating. I came up with some interesting techniques to trace back the attacks." He turned over his work to several law enforcement agencies, but he never heard about it again.
It was Allec who recommended Lyon to Richardson after the $500 eGold incident. "During that time when all those sites were getting extorted, you only stopped it one of two ways," Allec says. "You either paid them off, or you called Barrett."
Monday, Nov. 24, 2003: Building the Defense
Lyon's plan for BetCris was to build a system that would absorb huge DoS attacks, and he had an idea how, technically, he might do that. But he had little idea how he would convince a tier-one hosting facility (essentially an ISP's ISP), to host his system—to voluntarily accept massive DoS attacks to see if his little project could thwart them.
Through his Opte.org project, Lyon knew of an ISP called PureGig in Phoenix with a 10Gbps pipe, plenty of bandwidth to host his system without disturbing PureGig's other customers. Lyon called Matt Wilson at PureGig. He begged.
A heated internal debate took place at PureGig. The company was ready to say no, Wilson told Lyon. Lyon begged harder.
Lyon believes what tipped PureGig to support his cause was altruism. "They told me they don't like to back down from challenges," he recalls. But it probably had as much to do with generating business. For, if Lyon and PureGig did figure out how to stop DoS attacks, they would have something that their competitors didn't.

"There was a great deal of skepticism here; it was not a popular idea," recalls Wilson. "My thinking was that normally the ISP's solution for DoS attacks is to shut off the customer," he says. (In other words, null-route them like the ISP did in shutting down BetCris.) Wilson adds, "In our minds, that wasn't a good long-term solution. Revenue issues aside, we thought maybe we could learn how to fix the problem. But still, it was a huge risk."
With PureGig committed, Lyon worked for the next three days without sleep, designing, building, testing, rebuilding and retesting his system. "I used all the methodologies I knew, all the code I knew, plus some new ideas."
Lyon kept in constant contact with PureGig and with Lebumfacil in Costa Rica. Lebumfacil deferred to Lyon. "I was part of it, I stayed up all night with him on the line," Lebumfacil says. "I was never allowed to touch any of the boxes. I would make suggestions, and he'd take some of it and not take some of it.
"Barrett had his idea. There was so much uncertainty. Many times I thought, I hope he knows what he's doing. But Barrett had this calm confidence. You want to freak out, and he just works. He's so focused."
By Wednesday, Lyon had something. A patchwork of original code stitched together with commercial products, he described it as "a highly fortified data center with proxy and security software and some monitoring, and more bandwidth than the bad guys."
Denial of Service, Deconstructed
Denial-of-service attacks are an old and crass way to disrupt a network, and yet still are immensely effective. DoS attacks overload the pipes that connect computers to the Internet with massive amounts of legitimate but useless data. DoS attacks create epic traffic jams. The cars in this analogy would be requests for service that hackers send to the target website. Each time the target site gets a request, it must deny it. But because the hacker sends massive numbers of requests from thousands of computers, the target must use nearly all of its time and resources just to deny these requests for service, effectively blocking access to anyone with a legitimate request.
Before that, though, the hacker must create a network of computers big enough to overwhelm the target. They don't buy these computers, they commandeer them. They plant software scripts on systems distributed throughout the world (hence, distributed denial of service, or DDoS). These compromised computers are called zombies, or bots, because they generate attack traffic automatically, without the owners' knowledge.

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The O'Leary Scam

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This is the best scam of all-time for one simple reason: I was the victim!

One night twenty years ago while getting drunk in a New York Irish pub, the conversation turned to gambling and card playing. I was there with a girl I had met hours before in another pub that might also have been an Irish one; I can’t remember. There were twenty or so people engaged in this conversation and it was quite lively. Two Irish guys—I mean real Irish guys from Ireland with red hair, white skin and freckles— had everyone cracking up with their little gambling anecdotes leading to one catastrophe or another. Then a woman who was plainly Italian pulled a deck of cards and slapped them on the bar. “Anyone want to see a great card trick?” she beamed, probably at least as sauced as I was.Everyone pitched in with encouraging laughter to say how thrilled everyone else would be to see her card trick. She then proceeded to do that classic dopey poker-hand trick everyone has seen performed by at least four generations of his family: the one with the four hands of seven-stud ending up four jacks, four queens, four kings and, of course, four aces for the dealer.

Everybody applauded her, anyway, and then another schmuck took the cards and began shuffling. When he’d finished, he dealt three columns of seven cards face up. He said to the girl who’d just finished her crummy trick, “Pick a card, but don’t tell me what it is. Keep it in your head.

”The girl was either stupid enough or drunk enough to blurt, “Does it have to be one of the cards you dealt on the bar?” The rest of the deck was lying off to the side.The guy indulged her with a smiling nod.

She was kind of hot and had big tits, so obviously he didn’t care how dumb she was.The girl’s drunken eyes passed over the twenty-one cards. “Okay, I chose a card.”I recognized the trick as soon as the guy started dealing out the columns. It was one of those mathematical numbers that could never go wrong if you didn’t fuck up the procedure. The version he was doing was the one with the petals and the flowers, goading the victim to pick this petal then that one after she’d already picked the two columns that didn’t contain the card. I think the first time I saw the trick done was in kindergarten.

The woman, ever so drunk as she was, managed to play along and finished by affirming that the card the guy flicked over at the end was indeed hers.

I’d just about had my share of card tricks when one of the two redheaded Irish guys clamored, “Those tricks are for bloody boobheads!” Anyone here want to see a real good one?”For some reason I volunteered, surely hoping it would be better than the previous two and the last of the night.

He picked up the deck off the bar and fanned them face up in front of me. “Pick any card,” he said.

I looked at him. “Just like that, face up?

”The other Irish guy piped in behind him. “Yeah, mate, just like that.”

I slid out the 9♠ without hesitation. I looked up waiting for one of them to do something. The one next to me spoke. “What would you say if I told you I know someone back in Ireland whom I could call right now, hand him the phone without saying a word, and he’ll tell you that the card you picked was the nine of spades?

”I looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock at night in New York, which meant it was four o’clock the next morning in Ireland.

I’d say the guy either goes to bed late or gets up early.”

They laughed heartily, then the one behind suggested slyly, “Care to make a little wager on that, mate?”

looked at the girl I was with. I could see she knew as much about cards as I did about the theory of relativity, which was zero.

“Come on, mate,” the one who’d spread the cards said. “Why not put a little fun in the evening. Soon it’ll be the top of the mornin’.

”“Okay,” I said pulling out my wallet. “I’ll go twenty bucks saying you’re friend in Ireland can’t tell me my card if you don’t tip him off.”

“Twenty bucks!” they exclaimed in unison. Then they took turns telling me I insulted their chivalrous play. The one behind finished off with, “The phone call over there will hardly be covered for twenty bucks, mate.”

Well, whatever their gig was, it was clear they knew I’d lose the bet. And this in spite of the fact they didn’t know whom they were trying to hustle. But I was curious about their trick, plus I was in a good mood knowing I was going to get laid once I got out of there.“So how much do I have to do this for?” I asked them.

“You got fifty.”

“Sure.” I laid the fifty on the bar. They did not hesitate to lay theirs alongside it. “Now let’s make that call.”

You have to remember that twenty years ago there were no cell phones. There was just a cranky old pay phone near the entrance. The front guy asked the bartender, “Pat, gimme ten bucks in quarters, would ya?”

“It’s okay,” Pat chimed, you can use the bar phone.” He reached underneath the bar, pulled it out and slapped it on the surface next to the nine of spades. “Who you calling, anyway?”“Some bloke in Ireland.”

The phone slid off the bar and disappeared faster than you could say “Dublin.” I followed the two Irishmen to the pay phone. At least ten people followed me, everyone with either a drink or cigarette in his hand. As the one dropped a load of quarters into the phone’s slot, he piped at me, “Are you ready, mate?”

I nodded.

“I’m not going to say a word to my buddy on the phone about your card. I’ll just see if he’s home and pass you the phone when he comes on. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He dialed a number, then after a few seconds said into the receiver, “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” Then he said, “Hold on,” and passed me the phone.

I put the receiver to my ear. “Mr. O’Leary?”

The cheery voice on the other end was indeed Irish. “That’s me, mate. Your card is the nine of spades.”

At first I thought it no big deal that he knew my card, but when it finally hit me that he knew my card I was flabbergasted. For some reason I thanked him before hanging up.When I turned back to the two Irishman, they were already at the bar scooping up my fifty-dollar bill. Everyone else was asking if the guy on the phone guessed my card.

“He didn’t guess it,” I informed the crowd with a bit of thespian delight. “He knew it.”The two Irish guys were laughing as I came over. “You want to do it again, mate?” one of them asked.

“Yeah,” I answered immediately, “but how ‘bout for less money.” I knew that I was outhustled but I wanted to see this again, figure out how they did it. I knew they wouldn’t give it up for nothing.

“Okay,” the second one said as he picked up the cards and gave them a quick shuffle with a fancy bridge. He spread them and told me to pick a card. I fingered the width of the fanned cards and slipped out the 4♣. Then the first Irishman put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and told me to match it.

I laid the bill on the bar and followed them back to the phone. Evidently enough quarters remained in the Irishman’s pocket to make the second call. He dialed and again asked for Mr. O’Leary. When O’Leary came on the line, he told him to hold on and passed me the receiver. I bid the familiar voice hello and he answered with “Your card is the four of clubs.”

“Wanna go again, mate?” The Irish guys were having a ball with me.

“How the fuck did you guys do that?”

I demanded.

The first one gave me a peppered shrug and said, “You know magicians don’t give away their secrets.”“It’s not magic,” I protested. “It’s a goddamn card trick.”The second one had a great retort for that. “It’s not a trick. O’Leary just read your mind. He knows you’re thinking of your card when you get on the phone. So he just hones in on your brain and finds the part of it thinking of the card.”“You guys got a good line of shit,” I said, and they got off laughing at me. The whole bar was getting in on it, including the bartender who seemed to have already borne witness to their little gag. I approached the bartender and asked him how they did it.

He just chuckled and said in an Irish accent, “I haven’t the foggiest idea, mate?”How the hell did they do it? That thought prevented me from both getting laid and sleeping that night. I lay awake for hours in the girl’s apartment, in her bed with her lovely body sprawled naked in the same spot where she’d finally given up on me and fallen asleep.

Not only am I a fairly intelligent person but I know how to navigate pretty well around logic. The first thing I was sure of was that somehow that Irish guy in the bar told Mr. O’Leary what my card was. The only way that certainty would not be true was if there had been another unseen phone extension inside the bar and somebody else told Mr. O’Leary the card. But after being led on a tour of the place by the bartender, during which I felt like an idiot, I had to accept the fact that there was no other phone there. So then how did the Irish guy tell O’Leary which card I’d selected? I had been right by his side when they spoke.

Twice. Each time, the Irish guy said nothing more than “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” and “hold on.” Neither utterance contained words that would indicate the nine of spades and the four of clubs. But somehow those words did indicate those cards. And it was killing me to find out.I racked my brains. Somewhere in those lines was a hidden code that told Mr. O’Leary what my cards were. But how could the same exact lines give him the correct information for two different cards? I even asked myself if it were possible that the inflection in the caller’s voice tipped off O’Leary. But if that were the case then O’Leary would have to be sensitive to fifty-two different inflections. Impossible.The unknown solution ate at me an entire week. Then finally, not being able to take it anymore, I returned to the pub on a busy Saturday night.

he place was packed, and sure enough the two Irish guys were hustling another customer with their trick. Only this time the bills on the bar were hundreds and the guy getting taken was sweating and did not look happy. I watched all this from a distance. The Irish guys either didn’t see me or didn’t recognize me. The victim followed them to the phone, probably for the second or third time, and upon hanging up came walking back toward the bar in disbelief, then did an about-face toward the exit.

The second he was out the door, I saw one of the Irish guys pass a bill off to the bartender, who promptly stuck it in his pocket.So the bartender was in on it as well. They were working a major scam with this trick, or whatever the hell it was.I came back the next night determined to crack the case. Irish pubs in Manhattan usually drew crowds every night of the week. Sunday night at this one was no exception.

The Irish guys were flirting with a couple of women by the bar. I decided to wait patiently until they went into the routine. I knew they would eventually because these guys were not there for just booze and women. The place was their livelihood. At midnight, just before I was about to pack it in, two slick looking black dudes walked inside the bar. They had that instant air of loose cash, either pro athletes or musicians. The Irish pair adroitly got them into conversation and within a half hour the bartop was crawling with hundred-dollar bills. I was thinking to myself that the scammers had better be careful with these black guys.

They looked like the kind you didn’t want to fuck with. But obviously the Irish duo was very well rounded and knew how to handle whatever situation arose during the working of the scam.Well, we’ll see about that, I said to myself.After it happened, I realized I’d been destined to do it.

But at the crucial moment I still had to make sure not to blow it. Bad timing could have blown the whole thing, and I would’ve been in a lot of pain for nothing. As soon as the Irish guy dropped the quarters into the phone’s slot, I made my way through the thinning crowd toward him. I watched him dial and waited until I knew instinctively that the moment had arrived to make my move. I charged the pay phone and grabbed the receiver from the guy’s hand.

He protested but I quickly knocked him out of the way. I then put the receiver to my ear without uttering a sound. What I heard at first made no sense. It was indeed O’Leary’s voice and it was counting…“two, three four, five, six…” The Irish guy made a lunge at me but I knocked him out of the way again. His buddy was coming after me too, but one of the black dudes stuck out a big arm and held him at bay. By that time O’Leary had reached “king.” And then his voice rasped in my ear, “What’s the fucking card, mate! Did I miss it?”“You sure did, scumbag!” and I hung up the phone.There’s an old New York joke about asking a bartender what time his Irish pub closes.

He doesn’t answer you with a time; rather he says, “As soon as the first fistfight breaks out.”Well, that meant that this Irish pub would be closing real soon. In the ensuing brawl I got whacked with a few good shots that drew blood from my mouth. The poor Irish guys, whose names turned out to be Arnold and Donald Lorrigan and who were currently on their way to the hospital ward at the Rikers’ Island jail, got the shit kicked out of them. The arresting cops asked me what it was all about, and when I told them, one of the coppers, who was also Irish, quipped, “Musta been a pretty good card trick.”It was simply the best card trick I had ever seen.

The way it worked was in reversal. It was true that the caller was transmitting the information to O’Leary, but he was doing it in reverse. That’s why virtually no one can figure it out. The key to deciphering it is that you have to know it was O’Leary speaking first, not the Irish guy. The first words I had heard from the caller were “Is Mr. O’leary there?” Upon hearing those words you naturally assume that whoever answered on the other end had picked up with a “hello” or something to that effect. Then when the Irish guy says “Hold on” and passes the phone off to the victim, you naturally think that O’Leary had just come to the phone after having been summoned by the person who had picked it up.

But it is really O’Leary who answers the phone. And instead of saying hello, he goes right into a recital of counting the cards…“ace, two, three, four…” Then when he arrives at the card you had chosen, the caller says “Is Mr. O’Leary there?” That stops O’Leary’s counting dead in its tracks. For if the last card O’Leary said was “jack,” then he knows it’s a jack. Next only the correct suit needs to be transmitted. Once O’Leary receives the signal that the card is a jack, he begins reciting the four suits…“spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds.” As soon as he hits the correct one, the caller says “Hold on,” which tells O’Leary he just said the right suit, and passes the phone to the victim who’s about to be stunned. What makes this trick so unbelievable is how natural the talking sounds. The set-up guy just dials a number, asks to speak with someone and then asks that person to hold on while he passes the phone to the victim. I had never been so impressed by a card trick or phone trick, whatever you want to call it. Learning it was well worth the seventy bucks I lost and the busted lip.

Over the years I’ve done that trick dozens of times, though never for profit. The most fun performing it is at parties or anyplace with large gatherings of people. Listening to people trying to figure it out is as funny as any comedy routine you’ll ever see. The ridiculous theories people put forth to solve the puzzle are as unreal as they are hilarious.

You hear everything from high-tech satellites eavesdropping on the room to infrared lenses spying on the deck of cards from another galaxy. One time at a party while doing the trick, a cute girl made me come with her into the bathroom with the lights off. She said she wanted to be sure that no one else could see which card she chose. I wondered if it was a pretext to jump my bones, but when she struck a match to create a small light while she picked the card, I realized how nuts this trick drove everybody, as it had once done to me.

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Avoid Online Casino Scams

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If you are gambling for the first time, or you have just found a new casino and you are all excited about playing their games, here are a few things you should check first.


Casino & Software licenses

Any trustworthy casino has to be licensed and regulated by the gambling authority of the country where it's based. This information, along with the name of the company that owns the casino, should be found on the homepage. You can check whether the license is still valid by accessing the licensing authority's list of approved casinos. That fact that the casino is licensed gives you extra safety, and in case you feel you have been treated unjustly, you will have the opportunity to file a complaint against them. If you cannot find the license information anywhere on the site, you have probably come across an illegal operation, and you shouldn't start gambling there. The anonymous nature of the internet provides a golden opportunity for those who want to set up illegitimate gambling sites, and then rip your off, so you should be very careful about this.

The casino's payouts should be audited by an independent firm, which verifies that the winners are determined by a random number generator, and that the outcome of the games is fair. Good casinos also provide their payout reports on the site, listing the overall payout percentage and the percentages for the available game categories as well.

Another important detail that you should check is the type of software the casino uses. Casinos operating with software from the major names in the industry, like Microgaming or Playtech are the most reliable ones, because they offer fair games, with reasonable gambling odds. As a player, you have the right to know what kind of software the gambling site uses. If you can't find any information about this, or the provider is some obscure company, then you might be at risk. Certain casinos have been known to use software that favors them, or, more plainly put, cheats. So if the casino is unwilling to divulge details about their software, it's best to choose a different place to play at.

Your personal information details

One of the most important safety issues is the fact that you will have to give the casino personal information, like your credit card details, in case you play for money. If you are playing for free, then you shouldn't give out such details, and there's no reason why the casino would require it. If it does however, it should be a warning sign. There have been a number of frauds related to internet banking, and it's only natural that people feel uneasy when they need to disclose such information. Most casinos have a secure page for the transactions, with SSL encryption to prevent any data theft. Honest sites also include a 'Privacy Policy' statement clarifying that your details won't be sold or given to third parties. This statement should be on the home page or provided as a link from the registration forms.

All the online casinos state that they have a support team ready to answer all your questions, but this is something you should test yourself. There are several contact methods they can provide, like live chat, a toll-free telephone number or email. Try contacting them before you start to play, and see if you get a prompt reply. If they never pick up the phone, or your email goes unanswered for weeks, that's probably the kind of treatment you'll get when you have a problem too.


Casino reviews

Before entering and depositing any money at the site, look for casino reviews about it, and see if they are favorable. Gambling forums are also a good source of information, because you can find out other players' opinions, and whether someone has had problems at the casino before. Many review sites and casino guides also offer a blacklist of the rogue casinos. If you find the name of the site you planned to play at on one of these lists, then you should stay away from it, for your own sake.

Losing some money at the casino is a risk that every gambler takes, but being cheated out of it can be quite a frustrating experience, especially given the fact that you can avoid it with a few hours' research. So make sure that you do your homework before starting to play, and this way you will surely have the most pleasant stay at the online casinos, and with a bit of luck, take home a big winning as well.


Best Regards,

The Costa Rican Bookie

That guy called Limpy Sunday

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I love gambling stories. They often have an insider's perspective that only other veteran gamblers can fully appreciate. They can be disastrous and funny at the same time, concerning everything from bad beats to near misses to insights into human nature. If you gamble long enough, you'll surely collect stories of your own.

There was a fellow called Limpy who used to hang out at the Stardust sportbook on Sundays to watch NFL football. Each and every Sunday, Limpy would risk precisely $20 on a 10-team NFL parlay card. (A 10-team parlay card at that time paid 850-for-one, making Limpy a $17,000 winner if he won.)

Trouble was, Limpy never began the day with a clue as to which ten teams he liked. To decide which teams to choose, he developed a regular group of professional-level handicappers from whom he'd prompt advice. Limpy valued these handicappers' opinions, and he'd finally form his own opinions from what they had to say.

I was one of those honored advisors. In those days, the Stardust was one of my favorite sportbooks, and I could easily be found at my favorite station, watching for line moves. Every Sunday, sooner or later, here would come Limpy, and he'd ask me which teams I thought he should put on his ten-banger. I always took the time to do my best for Limpy, even though I discouraged his ten-teamers. The payoff actually wasn't all that bad, but the wins figured to be too far apart. At 850-to-1, you can expect your wife to divorce you and your dog to die before you hit a winner.

As luck would have it, I got on a pretty good streak for several weeks - (or, at least, Limpy perceived me to be on a good roll) - and finally one Sunday Limpy decided I should have the honor of picking all ten of his bets. So I did.
Whaddayouknow, the first six games were early games and all six were winners. Then, in the four late games, three were early blowouts in Limpy's favor.
Wow. Limpy was coming unglued. He was giggly and excited, talky and nervous. His hands were trembling and he was sweating and he paced back and forth, chain smoking and shouting orders at the various television screens. He'd sit, he'd stand, he'd pace, he'd sit, he'd recheck the total amount he planned to win, he'd order another Mountain Dew from the cocktail waitress and pace some more...

Sure enough, the three blowouts went on to win, making nine of the ten games winners. My picks were 9-0, leaving one game still in the air, the Chargers -3 at home against the Raiders.The Raiders finally beat us, 12 - 7.

Limpy was crushed. Another losing Sunday. Another $20 lost and gone. Another $17,000winning ticket down the drain. He sat slumped in his chair with his head bowed,sullen and withdrawn.
I approached him with a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. He angrily swatted me away, outraged, and shouted, "The Chargers?!...How the hell could you pick the Chargers?!"

Injuries can change things quick at playoff time

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The San Antonio Spurs were done as title contenders the minute they revealed Manu Ginobili was lost for the year. Boston might be, too, if Kevin Garnett can't return.

The Spurs hoped to meet the Lakers, and the Celtics were expected to battle the Cavaliers in a marquee final four. Now maybe nothing can prevent a Kobe Bryant-LeBron James showdown in the NBA finals.

But watching Brad Miller spit out blood before shooting two crucial free throws, or a woozy Courtney Lee taken to a hospital after being clobbered in the head - by his own teammate, no less - was a reminder that even those presumed finalists from Los Angeles and Cleveland could be one mistimed injury away from becoming an ordinary team.

Or as Hornets coach Byron Scott warned before the playoffs: ''With the better teams, it probably comes down to who stays the healthiest. The farther the series goes, the more your best players can get hurt and the series can change quickly.''

And it happens often in the playoffs, when the hits become harder and there's less time between games to heal the injuries they cause.

Miami seized the home-court advantage in its series with Atlanta, then quickly gave it back when Dwyane Wade was in such pain from back spasms that he had to be helped from his seat on the bench.

Being good helps. Come playoff time, being healthy might count more.

''You just can't afford (injuries) when you play the best teams in the league,'' Houston coach Rick Adelman said. ''You can't afford it when you play them in a seven-game series.''

Adelman knows from experience, be it losing Chris Webber in the postseason to a knee injury when he was in Sacramento, or having to play without Yao Ming just last year in Houston.

Many NBA coaches have a similar story - sometimes even a few of them.

''There's an element of luck involved in winning a championship,'' Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni said. ''You have to have it, or at least can't be unlucky.''

The former Phoenix coach can point to Joe Johnson's facial fracture that sidelined him late in the 2005 postseason, or even a freak cut on Steve Nash's nose that couldn't be contained, forcing him to sit out most of the last 2 minutes of a loss to San Antonio in the opener of a series two years later.

The one that stands out to D'Antoni was from the 2006 Western Conference finals, when the Suns' Raja Bell and Dallas forward Josh Howard were both injured in a Game 1 victory for Phoenix. Howard made it back for Game 2, Bell didn't, and the Mavericks went on to win the series.

''If it was just flip-flopped, if Raja Bell comes back 100 (percent) and Josh doesn't, then we probably could have won the series, which was a conference final, then been in the finals,'' D'Antoni said.

The Spurs were hurt the most this year, unable to overcome Ginobili's absence and eliminated by Dallas, ousted in the opening round for the first time since 2000 - when an injured Tim Duncan was sidelined with a knee injury.

The Celtics have to believe they could have eliminated the Bulls by now if they had not only Garnett (knee) but also Leon Powe (knee), his injured backup. Chicago could argue it could have already completed the upset if it had normal starting forward Luol Deng, out with a leg injury.

Already knowing they'll be without the suspended Dwight Howard for Game 6, the Magic could be in further trouble if they're also without Lee, whose status was unknown after Howard inadvertently hit him in the head while trying to block a shot early in Game 5.

Sometimes, the player doesn't even have to be knocked out to swing a game - or potentially a series.

Miller was bloodied on a drive to the basket after taking a shot to the mouth on a hard foul by the Celtics' Rajon Rondo with 2 seconds left in overtime and Chicago trailing 106-104. Clearly shaken even after attending to his injury, Miller missed badly on the first free throw, failed to hit the rim while attempting to miss the second on purpose, and the Celtics hung on to take a 3-2 lead.

All the injuries could not only leave the Cavs and Lakers as the best teams, but also the healthiest. With Ben Wallace returning for Cleveland and Andrew Bynum back for the Lakers, both are as close to full strength as a team could hope.

Unlike the Spurs.

''We're disappointed because we didn't have everything available to us come playoff time,'' Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. ''That's probably as important as anything, figure out a way to have best opportunity to have everybody healthy for the playoffs.''

The Costa Rican Bookie Horses to Watch

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Horses worth watching, a list of runners compiled by handicapper/turf writer Greg Melikov that should improve significantly or do well next time out, won six times times, ran second four times and finished third seven times since March 7. These thoroughbreds are worth considering when developing your betting strategy.

CALDER
Texas Billy Boy: Bumped, steadied early, raced fifth more than 5 ½ lengths behind after a half-mile, bumped with another rival on the turn, rallied three wide into stretch, closed well to second making up nearly 3 ½ lengths and lost by a head at six furlongs on April 25.
Starship Valor: Bumped hard with rival at break, raced fifth early, dropped to sixth more than three lengths behind after a half-mile, lost a couple of lengths entering stretch, rallied from fifth to make up more than 3 ¾ lengths and finished second by 2 ½ lengths at six furlongs on April 24.

CHURCHILL DOWNS
Success Success: Raced more than seven lengths behind in sixth after a half-mile, angled out for drive, closed well in stretch to make up nearly two lengths and finished third beaten a nose and a neck at seven furlongs on April 26; ran final three furlongs in 36 4/5.
Bell Got Even: Broke seventh and last, trailed by more than 5 ½ lengths after a half-mile, steadied off heels of rival leaving turn, split horses in stretch, made up 3 ¼ lengths and finished third by two lengths at six furlongs on April 25.

EVANGELINE DOWNS
Nine Free: Raced four lengths behind in fifth after three-eighths of a mile, steadied leaving the turn, recovered to rally from fourth making up nearly four lengths and finished second beaten a neck at five furlongs on April 24.

HOLLYWOOD PARK
Reality Uptown: Dueled with winner from the start and finished second beaten a head at 4 ½ furlongs on April 22.

LONE STAR PARK
Belfast: Broke slowly 10th and last, trailed by more than 13 ½ lengths after a half-mile, swung five wide into the stretch, rallied from fourth to make up more than two lengths and finished second beaten a length at 1 1/16 miles on the turf April 23.

PHILADELPHIA PARK
Stones Throw: Pressed pace a head back in second after a half-mile, gained lead by a head after six furlongs, dueled gamely rest of way, bumped with winner in mid-stretch and finished second beaten a head at a mile and 70 yards on a sealed muddy surface on April 20.

PIMLICO
Our Sue: Bumped, steadied and shuffled back to eighth shortly after start, raced seventh more than 9 ½ lengths behind after a half-mile, bumped with second-placed finisher in mid-stretch and lost the place by a neck at six furlongs on April 24.

TAMPA BAY DOWNS
Opportune Moment: Raced three lengths behind in sixth after a half-mile, bumped with rival while in tight on turn, angled out three wide for room entering stretch, made up nearly 1 ½ lengths from third and finished second beaten a neck at about a mile on the turf April 21.

TURF PARADISE
Ma Barker: Raced more than 2 ½ lengths behind in fifth after a half-mile, advanced four wide in stretch to fourth, made up more than 1 ¾ lengths and finished second beaten three-quarters of a length at six furlongs on April 20.

NBA playoffs: Hornets at Nuggets, Game 5 (Denver leads 3-1)

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Just think, if you had the New Orleans Hornets and +57 on WagerWeb.com (not that it was an alternate line option) for Game 4 against the Denver Nuggets, you still lost money!

Yes, the Hornets played one of the worst playoff games in history. Not Hornets history, but NBA history in losing by 58 points at home in Game 4, which means Denver can wrap it up at home tonight.

And the Nuggets are 10.5-point favorites on WagerWeb.com, with an over/under of 198.

Really, is there any chance the Hornets can win tonight? Tyson Chandler has been invisible this series, with the Hornets center averaging only 3.8 points and 5.3 rebounds after going scoreless in that Game 4 blowout.

“I can’t cut the way I want to.” Chandler said of his ailing ankle. “I can’t sprint or even jump the way I want to. My timing is off. The thing I can do is just make my presence felt out there.”

And what’s with Chris Paul? The All-Star had four points and six assists in Game 4, also turning the ball over six times. The Nuggets keep running multiple players at Paul, and it’s working as he has been outplayed by Chauncey Billups in this series.

“We compared it to like a football (strategy),” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “We want Chris Paul to feel like he’s being blitzed.”

For all the success Paul had during the regular season — averaging 22.8 points and 11 assists — he’s been limited to 17.8 points and 10.5 assists in the series. He also has averaged 5.3 turnovers against the Nuggets. Karl added that he didn’t think Paul was 100 percent healthy after Paul took a couple of hard falls during Game 3. The Hornets are averaging 83.7 points, 15th among the 16 playoff teams.

The Nuggets won the first two games in Denver by a combined 54 points, so it’s hard to imagine the Hornets putting up much of a fight tonight. If the Nuggets win, it will be the first time since 1994 the team advanced past the first round. They would face Dallas in the conference semifinals.


* Over is 4-0 in the last 4 meetings in Denver.

* Hornets are 0-5 ATS in the last 5 meetings.

This week on PGA Tour: Quail Hollow Championship

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Easily the best field since the Masters and probably the fourth-best field overall this year will be on hand for this week’s stop on the PGA Tour, the Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte.

Most of the Tour’s top players took a two-week break from the PGA Tour to relax and recuperate after all the stress that comes with playing at Augusta National. But this week in the field are world No. 1 Tiger Woods, No. 2 Phil Mickelson, No. 3 Sergio Garcia, No. 4 Geoff Ogilvy, No. 7 Padraig Harrington, No. 8 Vijay Singh and No. 13 Anthony Kim.

“The Masters is always a tough week,” said Garcia, who tied for 38th at Augusta. “I wanted to take a little bit of time off, go back home and see my family and friends and relax a little bit and get away from the game.”

All of the tournament’s past champions are here with the exception of Joey Sindelar, who has moved on to the Champions Tour.

Woods won this event in 2007 (formerly called the Wachovia Championship) but missed last year because of knee surgery. Kim is the defending champion here, lowering the course record by three shots with a 16-under 272 in winning his first event.

Kim took off last year following that maiden win but has struggled this season - that 11 birdie round at Augusta notwithstanding. He doesn’t expect 16-under to be good enough to win this year, both because of the course and the field.

“It looks quite a bit different than when I won last year,” said Kim, who is +2000 on WagerWeb.com to repeat. “There’s definitely not as much rough. I’m guessing they want to see a lot of birdies and see a shootout.”

Obviously Tiger is the WagerWeb.com favorite at +175. Previous to his victory here in 2007, he had finishes of 11th and third in recent trips.

Mickelson (+650) has a solid track record at Quail Hollow (12, 4, 35, 5, 7), and he could have some momentum from besting Tiger by a shot in the final round at Augusta. But Lefty’s driving is still erratic, and Quail Hollow has tight fairways and well-developed rough – sort of like a U.S. Open course but certainly not as hard.

Vijay Singh (+3650) has a win in 2005 here and three additional top-10 finishes over the past six years, so don’t rule him out despite his struggles in 2009.

Masters champion Angel Cabrera (+5500 on WagerWeb.com) will tee it up this week for the first time since winning the Masters. After Cabrera won his first major, the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 2007, it took him six months to crack the top 20 in another PGA Tour event.

Kenny Perry, who lost the Masters in a playoff, is skipping this event to join his father, Ken, as grand marshals of the Kentucky Derby Festival’s 54th annual Pegasus Parade in Louisville.

A Look at America’s Race by the Numbers

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I like numbers, especially when it comes to horse racing. Figures are often mentioned in connection with America’s Race.
Since this will be the 135the Kentucky Derby, let’s play a numbers game:
1: The first running was in 1875: Aristides, named for a Pennsylvania horse breeder and not the ancient Athenian general and statesman, won when the distance was 1 ½ miles.
3a: The Derby is the first of the Triple Crown races that include the Preakness and Belmont. The term was coined by Daily Racing Form writer Charles Hatton in an article about Gallant Fox in 1930 – winner of all three races.
3b: During the past 30 years only 3 favorites triumphed: Spectacular Bid, ’79; Smarty Jones, ’04; and Big Brown, last year.
5: Two jockeys share the most victories: Hall of Famers Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack. Arcaro rode in 21 contests and two of his five winners captured the Triple Crown — Whirlaway in ’41 and Citation in ’48. Hartack won on five of a dozen mounts, including Iron Liege in ’57 and Northern Dancer in ’64.
Numbers come into play from the most productive preps to what post positions fare the best.
One thing is certain: Hitting the board in the final prep on the Road to the Roses is paramount. All but three winners in the past 47 years triumphed at Louisville after finishing off the board in their previous race and they ran fourth.
In ’05, Giacomo scored the second biggest upset in history after finishing fourth in the Santa Anita Derby and returned $102.60. The last SA Derby winner to score at Louisville was Sunday Silence in ’89.
Two horses that ran fourth a couple years apart in the Blue Grass won the Derby and paid very well: Sea Hero, $27.80 in ’93, and Thunder Gulch, $24.50 in ’95.
During the past 47 years, 16 Kentucky Derby champs chose the Blue Grass as the final prep. Ten ran in the Wood and 6 raced in the SA Derby.


Eight 3-year-olds that scored in their final outing during the 1970s triumphed on the first Saturday in May. Two others ended up third, including ’73 Triple Crown champ Secretariat.
In the Wood Memorial, Secretariat’s tablemate Angle Light went straight to the front and never looked back. A new challenger to the supremacy of Secretariat named Sham finished second. Ah, but in the 99th Derby Sham was the runner-up and Angle Light was a distant 10th.
The post position that produced the greatest number of winners the past 47 years is No. 10 – 7. Next with 5 each are posts 2 and 8 followed by 4 from posts 2, 3 and 5.
During the past 14 years, seven winners broke from post 13 all the way out to 20. Two posts are winless: 17 and 19. Three horses scored from post 16 while a pair won from 15.
The largest margin of victory in America’s Race is eight lengths, shared by four: Triple Crown winners Whirlaway, ’41, and Assault, ’46; as well as Old Rosebud, ’14, and Johnstown, ’39.
But there have been nine derbies in which the winner was only a nose better than the runner-up: Spokane, 1889; Azra, 1892; Ben Brush, 1896; Plaudit, 1898; Ala-a-Dale, 1902; Brokers Tip, 1933; Iron Liege, 1957; Tomy Lee, 1959; and Grindstone, 1996

Yet another contender out of Kentucky Derby

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First an injury struck Midshipman a few months ago, then Old Fashioned in early April and now Quality Road.
That’s a trifecta no Kentucky Derby bettor on WagerWeb.com wants to see because those three potential contenders at the Run for the Roses are all out of Saturday’s race following Quality Road’s hoof problem.
Quality Road had developed a quarter crack on his right front foot last Thursday, but his handlers were hopeful the horse could still make the Kentucky Derby. An acrylic patch was applied by hoof specialist Ian McKinlay on Sunday morning, but the colt subsequently returned from a gallop with a tinge of blood.
Although treated with a drying agent and an antiseptic for 24 hours thereafter, the hoof was still sensitive Monday morning.
Trainer Jimmy Jerkens said that the sensitivity was evident when the horse walked the shed row Monday morning, so plans to travel to Churchill Downs were scrapped with the hope that Quality Road can return by either the Preakness or Belmont.

“It’s devastating,” Jerkens said. “I don’t know if you could ever get a horse for a race like the Derby with his credentials leading up to it.”
Quality Road won 3 of his 4 starts, including the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park on March 28. Quality Road, who was to be Jerkens’ first entry in the Derby, bested another Kentucky Derby favorite, Dunkirk, in that Florida Derby, setting a track record in the process.
“He’s tender in the heel; it never went away,” said McKinlay, who worked on a similar injury sustained by Big Brown before the Belmont Stakes last year. “As big as he is, he is aggravating it because of how hard he hits the ground.”
None other than Bob Baffert, who trains another top Derby contender, Pioneerof the Nile, said he believed Quality Road was the main threat for Saturday’s race.
“To me, he was the horse to beat, he is a really good horse,” Baffert said. “It’s a shame because you don’t get too many chances with a good horse to come to the Derby and I really feel for them.”
The injury means Join in the Dance is in the Derby field. The colt, who finished third behind General Quarters in the Blue Grass Stakes on April 11, is currently 22nd on the graded stakes earnings list for 3-year-olds.

Do you know who founded Churchill Downs and...

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Do you know who founded Churchill Downs and is responsible for the Kentucky Derby? That makes for a great trivia question. It’s truly historic.
An ambitious 26-year-old Kentuckian got the idea while traveling in England and France during the early 1870s. The avid horse racing fan that lacked track management experience traveled to England, visiting the Epsom Derby that had been run annually since 1780, and France, where in 1863 the prestigious Grand Prix de Paris was launched.
He was Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of half the famous Lewis and Clark team that led the first American overland expedition (1803-06) along the Ohio River from Clarkesville, Ind., to the Pacific Northwest and back.
At the time racing and breeding in Clark’s native Bluegrass State were in decline. Upon returning from Europe he proposed a plan to prominent, wealthy Louisville gentlemen to build a track, hold a championship race and establish a jockey club with memberships.
In 1874, the brainchild became reality and the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association was incorporated that June. Then Clark leased 80 acres from his uncles, John and Henry Churchill, to build the track.

More than 300 subscriptions to members of high society were sold for $100 each to fund construction. The track, located just outside the city, was named for Clark’s relatives – Churchill Downs, which wasn’t officially incorporated until 1937.
On May 17, 1875, the inaugural meeting featured four races that included the Kentucky Derby, which was modeled after the Epsom Derby. A crowd of 10,000 wagered about $50,000.
Here’s more trivia you’ll find interesting that could earn a buck or two any time of year.
How many fillies have captured America’s Race? Three. Can you name them? They are Regret, 1915; Genuine Risk, ‘80; and Winning Colors, ‘88.
That leads us to another question: Who is the only roan to visit the winner’s circle? Winning Colors.
You get the picture so test your Kentucky Derby knowledge and check the answers after these 10 questions:
1. On what date were the Derby and Preakness held on the same afternoon?
2. In what year did the largest win payoff occur?
3. Who is the only foreign-based horse to triumph?
4. When was the Derby first televised?
5. Name the oldest jockey to win the Derby?
6. Who was the first woman to ride in America’s Race?
7. How many times have there been wire-to-wire winners?
8. Who are the only 3-year-olds to run the 1 ¼ miles under two minutes?
9. In what year did the largest crowd show up?
10. Who is the only sitting president to attend the Derby?
The trivia answers are:
1. 1922 – On May 13, Morvich scored at Churchill Downs and Pillory won at Pimlico.
2. 1913 – Donerail returned $184.90 to win for $2.
3. Canonero II captured the ‘71 Derby.
4. 1952 – CBS broadcast the ‘78th Derby won by Hill Gail.
5. Bill Shoemaker was 54 when he guided his fourth and last Derby winner Ferdinand in ‘86.
6. Diane Crump rode 15th place finisher Fathom in ‘70 when Dust Commander triumphed.
7. War Emblem in ‘02 was the last to wire the field.
8. Three horses ran the 1 ¼ miles under two minutes since the distance was shortened a quarter-mile in 1896. Record-holder Secretariat and bridesmaid Sham ran under two minutes in ‘73. Monarchos won in ‘01 just two ticks under the 1:59 2/5 posted by the Triple Crown champ.
9. 163,628 witnessed the ‘74 Derby captured by Cannonade.
10. Richard M. Nixon. He was at the ‘68 race when winning Dancer’s Image was disqualified to last after a post-race urinalysis found traces of phenylbutazone and Forward Pass was elevated to first. The drug’s use at the time was legal at other tracks, but not at Churchill Downs, which later allowed it.

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