Chapter Two; pages 18-21

My first roommate, Roy was a wonderful bullshitter from the get go, within the first 15 minutes of meeting, this clown informed me that he played minor league baseball in Puerto Rico after a standout career as a shortstop in college before managing to squeeze in some time to be a Navy Seal. I played enough baseball to start asking specific questions that Roy realized avoiding me would be in his best interest to cover up his tracks of re-inventing his life. Also there are no minor league baseball teams in Puerto Rico, plus you have to have some athletic ability to play it’s a bit more complex then get your mother’s permission from his assumed Little League playing days. I figured BOS owed someone a favor, or this was one screwed up company bringing aboard the poster child for the offspring of women that perform in the Tijuana donkey shows. Roy was a short, bald, stocky guy, in mid-twenties with a thick New Jersey accent. He would try to bust my balls for his lack of height saying if he was 6’4” instead of 5’5” (with platform heels) he would be playing NBA basketball with his 46 inch vertical leap. Out of respect for the NBA, Roy lacked height, brains, and talent. Our relationship was much like a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard, I rarely ever acknowledged his yapping but would occasionally show some teeth, letting him know to steer clear before I lift my leg to cool him off. Poor Roy would find out that the rest of the sales offices wasn't impressed by his stories either and would call him out on his bullshit and be the butt of a lot of jokes in sales. I enjoyed the hilarious manner which only a bunch of salesmen with too much time on their hands in a foreign country could devise.

Well a couple of days after hanging out in that smelly roach infested apartment, Navy Seal, sports jock extraordinaire Roy got robbed by petty thieves in Costa Rica. I don’t mean to demean Ticos (name for Costa Rican males) but they are generally rather short and skinny in stature. I am befuddled on how they overpowered the finest that the US Navy has to offer. So from here on out I must refer to the newest Naval program which I think Roy meant, The Navy Squirrels. I think it was also the New Jersey Pond Navy where Roy was all by himself in a floating tub like Beaver Cleaver and Whitey constructed in the 1960’s sitcom “Leave it to Beaver”.

So far not a very good impression for a self proclaimed first class organization but I stuck it out since I was envisioning the bigger picture of presenting the strategies I drew up in 1999 of revolutionizing the way online gaming advertises through consolidation and BOS was the heavyweight champ of all online sports books in 2000.

After taking my nap at the “Barrio Arms” where I rarely slept, my first official impression of BetOnSports was a bunch of non-social unhappy employees (with the exception of the sales office) on the 9th and 10th floors of the Mall San Pablo in San Jose, Costa Rica. BOS was a huge operation with a couple thousand employees that drove plenty of revenue into the mall and supported jobs of more than just the employees. The mall business was nicely subsidized by the workers of the 6th through 10th floors which were full of sports book employees. The tour of the top two floors led off with going through the security door and past the armed guards with sawed off shot guns. Talk about tough looking. Scary part was the guys with he shot guns probably didn’t even know how to use them other than to just hold them. I imagine they weren’t loaded or at least hope they wouldn’t be. After the armed guards the tour included executive offices, the VIP room, wager room, customer service room, sales office, and Claude’s office. His first office was a dimly lit large corner office with fine furniture, a beautiful grand mahogany desk, bathroom off to the side and burgundy painted walls. Behind his black leather chair was a view of the lush green Costa Rican mountains and a framed poster of “Poverty Sucks” to his right with a gentleman sipping a martini. It was a beautiful office. The type of office reserved for the very successful. The VIP room/board room one floor down where Claude spent a lot of time was equally impressive with more beautiful mountain views, fine furniture and occasional Ripner family members with Claude’s son and daughter running around. Just like any other father he loved his children and they got special treatment with toys lying around both offices. The toys lying around were rather humorous I thought. It’s too bad because for all of Claude’s greed those children might have to grow up without a father around.

Claude had an image. He looked like a gangster, a big stocky man, over 6 feet tall with the receding hairline, strong handshake, square jaw, serious scowl and a thick New York accent with bodyguards accompanying him everywhere. A lot of guys said that Claude was one guy they would not want to tangle with. I on the other hand believe the bodyguards were for his own protection because in retrospect I believe he stole a lot from others that wanted redemption. Rumor had it, before I showed up a syndicate beat Claude for over a million dollars and rather than pay up he made up some new rules that prohibited professional players from playing. The syndicate, not being too happy sent a few guys down to Costa Rica to collect and Claude’s body guards threw them a beating dumping them out in the fields outside the mall in a bloody mess. Guys like Claude need to protect themselves cause there is always going to be someone that is going to come looking for them when you continually steal, default on a contract, or make up a new rules for his customers that benefited him after the fact. He was vicious and didn’t care who he stepped on!
On the flip side Claude was a damn good business man or thief, I am not quite sure which one though. He's the 2nd greatest thief I have ever known. Biggest thief for sure considering the mass of wealth he accumulated. The greatest thief I know retired before turning 40 and went into legitimate business. I think that is the key to being a good thief. Amass your wealth than do everything you can to go legitimate because you’re flirting with time when it comes to stealing. Claude just never could get enough and went well into his 40's stealing as if he would never get caught.