Review of Betcha I Can!

Title:

Betcha I Can!: My Gamble to Succeed

Author:

Stu Feiner (as told to Tom Sabellico)

Publisher:

Aventine Press

Date:

2008

ISBN:

1-59330-569-9

Pages:

160

Price:

$11.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

February 10, 2009

Betcha I Can! is the second biography in the last year of a well-known personality in the sports betting business. This time out, it's Stu "The Source" Feiner, well known "sports information provider" who chronicles his life story.

At its heart, Betcha I Can! is a rags to riches to rags to, well, to-the-end-of-the-book story. A devoted sports fan from an early age, in his teenage years Feiner stumbled into success as a sports forecaster. He built his business to a multi-million dollar operation in the 80s and early 90s, before watching it all collapse like a house of cards as Internet-based services took over.

Honestly, I didn't find the story of the book to be terribly interesting, but there was something fascinating about the information that Feiner chooses to present. We are provided considerable detail about the lavish parties Feiner threw, the sports events he attended, and the famous restaurant meals he paid for. Feiner provides costs, dates, attendee lists, menu items, the liquor consumed, and the events that surrounded these bacchanalian affairs. At the same time, he provides essentially no details about the things we might expect him to know the most about, e.g., sports handicapping. We do hear about some of his marketing methods, but we hear next to nothing to suggest he knows any more about sports predictions than any drunk loud-mouth sitting alone in any randomly selected sports bar.

What I found most interesting in the book is what was not said. Feiner describes situations where his father is so distraught that he physically destroys televisions, Feiner himself hides from him in fear, and Feiner describes him as "emotionally abusive" towards Feiner's mother. The author never mentions whether his father becomes physically abusive with his family members, but he also never makes it clear that he did not. How far did the elder Feiner's rage go? We can only guess. Later in the book the author describes a time in his life where he had stopped drinking, and it's clear that much of his life has been about excess, but he doesn't tell us what it is that led him to stop so abruptly. The author seems to want to have it both ways. He wants credit for being candid in some spots, but elects not to tell the whole story in other spots. His artifice in this regard is so obvious and self-serving that it became impossible for me to muster any sympathy for him.

It's apparent from his accounts that Feiner is about as compulsive a person as I could possibly imagine. It's no exaggeration to say that I've encountered two year-olds with greater impulse control than the author. At it's heart, though, handicapping is about careful analysis and judicious selection of games and situations. It requires the same personality and skill set as financial advisors, an analogy the author uses as well. I can't help but ask the question, do I really want to take financial advice from a guy who doesn't know the meaning of the word restraint? Do I really trust this guy to predict enough sports outcomes correctly for me to overcome the -110 vig on top of his fees? To me, the answer to this question couldn't be clearer.

Feiner describes himself as an expert in the sports information business, but the only thing I could find in the whole book about handicapping is that he is "a very strong believer in underdogs". He provides some analysis of a few sporting events, but it's nothing I couldn't get from a random patron at any sports bar, or worse, a televised sports analyst or sports reporter. Moreover, he admits that in the year 2000, "I had never even turned on a computer". Now, it's true that once his business was up and running he had other folks who were making predictions for him, but he's still making predictions. On what basis? I have no idea, and the book provides no clue, and this engenders no trust on my part.

The bottom line is that the book makes it pretty clear to me that his goal was selling information, and that providing good information was a lower priority. Further, he talks about generating 70% winners. Sure, if you examine any service making a lot of picks you can find subsets that hit at an amazing rate, but I simply do not believe that 57% is sustainable at this rate against widely available lines, much less 70%.

By the end of the book, Feiner's life of excess has caught up with him, and he's trying to crawl his way back to the heights of his previous glory. He acknowledges many of the flaws in his personality that contributed to the depth of his downfall, but he devotes fewer words to explaining how he plans to do things differently.

The bigger problem, though, is that the author really doesn't give us a good reason to care if he turns things around or not. Given his history, it's hard to take anything he says seriously, and this is reflected in his attitude toward this book. If your autobiography weighs in at 160 pages and lacks a real conclusion, we have to wonder what motivated the author to write it in the first place. If you want to evoke sympathy from your readership but won't really come clean as to the details of your life, we have to ask if we should bother to become invested.

At Amazon.com, the paperback version of the book sells for $10.95. It can be purchased autographed for $5.95 in paperback or $10.95 in hard cover from Stu Feiner's web site. Anyone who provides a name, address, and telephone number can download a PDF file for free from the same web site. Frankly, given Feiner's reputation for marketing, someone buying this book may want to seriously consider paying the extra $5 to stay out of his database. Oh, his web site also claims that a feature film of his life is in development. Insert your own response here.

I have to admit that I found myself to be a little bit intrigued by what sort of personality could think that creating the mess that is this book was a good idea. While the story itself is about as compelling as the back of a cereal box, I was mildly fascinated in a morbid way by the mind that was behind it. Some people might be entertained by the book in the same way as I, but for those looking to be informed or entertained, no price is too low to make Betcha I Can! worthwhile. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this is the second autobiography in the last year by a personality from the sports betting world. If these two books are any indication, civilization can only pray that this doesn't become a trend.

Capsule:

Betcha I Can! is a brief, half-hearted, bizarre conceit by it's author, sports tout Stu Feiner. The book is neither informative nor especially entertaining, and it's one relative saving grace, it's brevity, doesn't come close to compensating for its failings. I recommend this book only to masochists or those whose only other option for entertainment is counting ceiling tiles for a second time.