First-time author Kevin Braig and professional cartoonist Andrew Paavola recently celebrated the launch of their new book, “Bookmakers vs Ball Owners: Behind the Demolition of the U.S. Ban on Honorable Sports Betting and Bookmaking,” at the Knowlton Library in Bellefontaine.
Paavola and Logan County Common Pleas Court Judge Braig donated all proceeds from sales of the book at the event to the library. The judge also donated a copy of his book to the library, so be sure to look for it on the new items bookshelf.
Published under Braig’s “QuantCoach” penname and social media moniker, the book documents Braig’s experience as a lawyer in the run up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision that demolished the federal law that confined licensed bookmaking to Nevada.
It also covers the political and economic history of bookmakers and bookmaking since the birth of professional sports in 1869. Veteran Chicago Sun-Times columnist and author Rob Miech wrote the forword.
“It is appropriate that we launch this book at the Knowlton Library,” Braig told an audience of approximately 50 invited guests. “Dutch Knowlton donated the money to build this library, and he also built Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. He was an owner of the Reds and the Bengals. Much of the action in this book takes place in the Greater Cincinnati Area.”
Paavola created the cover and back cover illustrations and provided two other cartoons for the interior of the book. He owns and operates Otter Be Happy Studio and resides in Huntsville.
“The sports cartoon was a sports section staple during the ‘Golden Age of Newspapers,’ but by 2012 it was all but extinct,” Braig said. “I loved those cartoons. That is why I reached out to Andrew. He is super talented. We also included political cartoons and advertisements from old newspapers to give the reader the feeling that he or she is reading a newspaper in the era in which the events took place.”
At the launch party, Braig read a selection from the book that focused on the strange way that he came to be part of the world of the bookmakers and sports bettors.
“In 2009, I opened a social media account on the X platform when it was known as Twitter. I posted about a mathematical formula I developed to quantify NFL coaching,” Braig said. “The bookmakers and the bettors found me. I had no prior exposure to the business of betting until then.”
Braig said he found the bookmakers to be fascinating characters and the media’s coverage of their profession to be just as fascinating.
“The founder of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings was a lottery agent in business with New York bookmakers. Another bookmaker was an accomplished art collector, and another designed the L train in Chicago,” he said.
“The bet handlers invented professional sports. The newspapermen respected them. They covered the action in their pool rooms and handbooks as closely and as openly as they covered the action on the ball fields.”
It took over three years for Braig to research and write the book. He said his purpose in writing the book was not to promote betting on sports. Rather, the purpose was to give professional bookmaking a thorough and fair examination and to try to motivate readers to think more deeply about fundamental principles that underlie capitalism—particularly borrowing and lending and private property rights.
“At its heart, this book is about rivalry and non-rivalry within the capitalist system,” Braig said. “Bookmaking is 100 percent, unadulterated capitalism, nothing more and nothing less. The only reason it became illegal outside Nevada is politicians could not resist using it as punching bag.”