Gambling Pals Share Victory, Friendship Becomes a Feud

Lloyd Butts and George Orfanos have been gambling buddies for more than 15 years, playing in poker games, pooling their money to bet at the racetrack, commiserating about the cruel tricks that fate has played on them. Recently the two pals shared a triumph: victory in a $10,000 handicapping contest at Delaware Park that qualified the winner to compete in a $100,000 contest in Las Vegas.

It should have been a jubilant occasion, but the events at Delaware split them apart and transformed their friendship into a feud. This time it wasn’t fate that played the cruel trick.

Despite their shared passion for betting, Lloyd and George have lives and personalities that are almost antithetical. Lloyd is a successful and wealthy businessman, owner of a home remodeling company; George is a racetrack scuffler who hasn’t held a conventional job in years.

At the track, however, George is a regarded as a popular and colorful character, a diligent handicapper who perpetually struggles to make a score with a small bankroll. Lloyd’s eyesight is failing so badly that he has difficulty reading the track program or following the action on the television monitors, causing him to depend heavily on George. A horseplayer who knows them both made this observation: “I’ve rarely heard Lloyd express an opinion of his own. George has good ideas and Lloyd takes them.”

George had an idea that he might be able to make a score in the June 3 Delaware handicapping contest. Entrants had to pay a $100 entry fee and register before the day of the contest; each would each start with a $200 bankroll and try to amass the highest total. Figuring that two chances to win were better than one, George phoned Lloyd on June 2, told him about the contest and asked if he wanted to come along and register.

Lloyd was busy, but George said, “I’ll go up and enter us,” though he was wary about making the trip. He cares for his aged mother, whose health had been deteriorating in recent days. Moreover, the temperature was above 90 degrees and the air conditioning in George’s car is defunct.

After paying the entry fees for himself and Lloyd, George returned to his Washington home, where he found his mother lying on the floor, the victim of an apparent stroke. She was rushed to the hospital, where George spent a sleepless night waiting outside the emergency room. In the morning he phoned Lloyd and told him he had entered both of them in the contest but now couldn’t leave his mother. When Lloyd said he would go to Delaware, George rattled off a list of some 10 horses he liked--headed by Out Burst in the first race at Belmont Park.

At Delaware, Lloyd bet $50 to win, $50 to place on Out Burst, who won at 2 to 1. His next two bets were on horses George recommended and both won, building his bankroll to $569. After that fast start, however, Lloyd was betting mostly his own selections, and by the time of the contest’s final race that bankroll had dwindled to $385.

Lloyd looked at a horse named Fount in the 11th at Pimlico and concluded, “It was the only horse that could get me out.” He bet the entire $385 and, when Fount rallied to win by a neck, Lloyd boosted his total to $1,349--good for second place.

Or so he thought. A few days later, a Delaware official phoned him to say that the first-place finisher had been an ineligible entrant. Could Lloyd come back to Delaware for an official presentation of the $10,000 first prize?

If Lloyd was happy, George was ecstatic. He didn’t mind letting Lloyd have the glory, but he desperately needed his share of the winnings. Moreover, the prospect of playing in the $100,000 national contest that crowns the “Handicapper of the Year” would buoy George’s spirits for months. “Winning that would change my whole life,” he said.

Before receiving his check, Lloyd gave George slightly more than $800, which George construed as a down payment on his 50% share. On the day that Lloyd was to receive his prize, George met him at Delaware Park, but he sensed that his friend was giving him a cold shoulder. After Lloyd received his check in a winner’s circle ceremony, George said, “Let’s whack this money up.” Lloyd replied: “Boss, we’ve got to talk this over. You would never have won this contest yourself. You didn’t have the ability to win it.”

George felt stunned and betrayed. They hadn’t put anything in writing, of course, but they’d been 50-50 partners on previous gambling ventures. “If it wasn’t a partnership arrangement,” George asked, “why would I go up there, put his name on the entry, lay out $100 for him and give him my horses?”

As George grew angrier, Lloyd seemed to harden his position that this triumph belonged to him alone.

I know both men--George has been my friend for more than two decades--and I tried to mediate.

I consulted a lawyer for a neutral opinion after asking both men to relay their version of the events, which were virtually identical, except for the crucial point of contention.

Lloyd insisted: “There was no discussion about a partnership or anything. If I thought we’d made a deal, I’d give him half. I don’t need the extra $5,000. I gave him 10% because I wouldn’t have known about the contest. But if he’d been there, we’d never have won it.”

After contemplating the evidence, I gave Lloyd my opinion.

“I know you made the winning bet, but the issue is whether you were partners and you were. A lawyer tells me the legal term is a ‘joint venture.’ Why else would George have given you his horses? If you and George had gone to Delaware together and he’d won the contest, there’s no question that he would have given you 50%.

“But even if you still think you’re right, Lloyd,” I told him, “do you want to start a lifelong feud over an amount of money that isn’t even important to you? My advice is: Pick up the phone, tell George you’re going to give him his share and that you want to work together to win the national contest.”

Lloyd wouldn’t pick up the phone, bringing the dispute to the worst possible outcome. George didn’t get the money he desperately needed and Lloyd forever lost a loyal and supportive friend.