Who Is @phillygodfather?

I was born to parents of Greek heritage, I was the only one of my siblings to be born in the United States of America. My parents came to this country with the American dream to have a better life for their children. I am the youngest of three boys and one girl. In school I excelled in Mathematics and sports and quickly fell in love with both. I loved playing every sport but at the age of 10 I was introduced to Boxing and it changed my life. I had over 80 amateur fights and was getting ready for my first pro fight when I suffered a broken rib 2 weeks before the fight. The legendary Don Elbaum was to promote my first fight but it wasn’t meant to be. Other than boxing another great love in my life is art. I am an avid collector of sports art and sports memorabilia.

Another life changing moment was when I was 18 teen years old and a friend of mine approached me with a proposition. He asked if I knew anyone that took bets, more or less a bookie. I told him I knew a lot of people and it shouldn’t be a problem finding one. Then he said something to me that I would never forget. He said he doesn’t gamble …he buys games. He then proceeded to tell me the more bookies I found the more money I would make. A few weeks later I recruited a couple guys to find as many bookies as they could and before I knew it I was betting games every day as a full time job. I was what they called back then a mover.. And before long I was moving so much money for my friend that his boss wanted to meet me. The next thing I knew I was sitting in an office with 20 other guys all with nick names that a lot of people have heard about as of late because of the Tim Donaghy book “Gaming the Game”.

Welcome to the world of the Wise guys! My friend “the Rooster” brought me into this world and because of him I got to work with Tiger, Sheep, and the Cat, and a few other legends of the sports gambling industry including the greatest sports gambler of all time. God, (B.W) as we called him would call the office and the Cat would answer the phone and in a matter of three minutes we would get down so much money on these games that The New York stock exchange would be jealous. Baba would be the one collecting the tickets and a form of synchronized chaos would emerge and then there would be calm until the phone rang again. We bet everything and anything we had an edge on from Football, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey to boxing and horse racing.. It was the best of times. It was the beginning of a life long journey into the world of gambling. I have worked with the sharpest and greatest gamblers to walk the face of the earth and continue to do so with total love in my heart for what I do.

I bet and I bet big but the biggest bet of my life was made in December of 2006 when I decided to go to trial for a crime I didn’t commit. I was facing up to 12 ½ years of freedom if I lost this bet. And as anyone knows your freedom is priceless. After 4 days of trial and 7 hrs of deliberation the jury came back with the verdict. I was found guilty of all charges and at that very moment I looked over to my lawyer and asked right away about my appeal and his exact words were kid your luck ran out, If you can’t win at trial you have no shot with the appeal son. They handcuffed me and took me away to the desert to start serving my sentence.