Dr. Dobb's Journal November, 2004
I t was a perfectly normal night in Foo Bar, the late-night hangout of computer industry executives, programmers, and journalists out on the edge of Silicon Valley where I occasionally work as relief bartender to listen in on industry gossip and to give Bernie, the bartender/owner, a night off to pursue his hobby of collecting expensive trinkets that irresponsible rich people have carelessly left lying around in their living rooms and wall safes.
I say "perfectly normal" because it was perfect, in my opinion, that the bar was back to normal after having been yuppified by the corporation that had owned it over the summer. Now that Bernie was back in charge, the decor had gone back downmarket, the lighting had gone just plain down, the floor was again covered in peanut shells, the old tables with years of history carved in their surfaces had been brought out of storage, and all the old patrons were back.
And there at the bar was my favorite mismatched set of high-tech journalists, Larry, Mo, and Curly Joe, talking about Silicon Valley and that perennial bar topic—betting.
"All this bar needs," Joe, an inflight magazine writer with an addiction to cream soda, said, "is a betting pool. So we can gamble on things like the Google IPO."
"That pool is called the NASDAQ," Mo murmured over her favorite drink, a Glenlivet Glen Ross. Mo, who reports for a certain San Jose-based daily, was closer to mellow this night than I'd ever seen her, but she wasn't going to let an opportunity to put Joe down get past her.
"We could place bets at the Long Bets Foundation web site," Joe went on, unruffled. "Larry, doesn't Lloyd's of London set odds on just about everything?"
Brit journalist Larry Wilde had been gazing around the bar, savoring the unchanges. "I'd turn to Ladbrokes these days for odds," he said, dreamily. "They're giving a mere three-to-one against gravity waves being confirmed by the year 2010. I have a quid down on that one myself, on the side of the astronomer boffins. There you are, Michael, right to the rim, if you please. Nothing looks so lonely as an empty wineglass."
Mo snorted. "You know what they say about online gambling: 'Click the mouse, lose the house.' But people are into it. It's bigger than sex."
Joe frowned. "You can't mean that betting is bigger than porn?"
Larry passed the glass of Chardonnay under his nose. "It certainly is in England. But then you know what they say about sex and us Brits. Still, last year, the company behind Betfair.com took home a Queen's Award for Enterprise. Some are calling Betfair the eBay of gambling."
"With music and sexy pictures," Mo added, "you can cut out the moneyman, reducing the market significantly. But gambling is all about the money. Gambling is pointless unless money is changing hands."
"The Long Bets people aren't that much into the money," Joe protested.
"And that's why that site is irrelevant."
Larry stirred again. "You need to understand, Joe, that gambling is, at heart, a pure information business, consisting of nothing but messages, certification, and funds transfer. And it's a trillion-dollar information business."
"Which," Mo added, "makes it a target."
"A target for whom?" Joe asked, gesturing for a refill.
"The Russian mafia. International cyber-extortionists running denial-of-service attacks on gambling sites."
Larry nodded. "Happens all the time. Sporting Options was taken down during the Grand National. UKbetting, Totalbet, all the big sites have been hit, the German MyBet, the Irish site PaddyPower. Mostly, the sites refuse to pay the extortion demands but, once in a while, a site pays up, so the extortionists keep at it."
"Unless they're caught," Mo added, "which actually happened to a Russian-based ring this year."
Joe shook his head. "I had no idea. Sounds like a real cyberwar. But how will it turn out? Will the extortionists undermine the online gambling industry?"
"Call me a wild-eyed optimist—" Mo began.
"Not likely."
Larry concurred. "An ill-fitting shoe, to be sure."
"—but I wouldn't be surprised if the gangsters and the casino owners came to a mutually profitable arrangement before long."
"Mmm yes," Larry said, frowning, "Pardon my British stereotyping, but doesn't that sort of thing traditionally involve, here in the States, an awkward transitional phase involving people going for a bathe in cement swimming costumes?"
Mo took a solemn sip. "You can bet on it."