Interviewer (3:42)

Seven years, though, that is a long.

Stu Finer (3:45)

Oh, my God.

Interviewer (3:46)

To be at the lows. Like you said, wife and kids.

Stu Finer (3:49)

Oh, God.

Interviewer (3:49)

You stay present. When you're going through seven years of waiting for the world to crash in.

Stu Finer (3:53)

On you, you know something? You act as if. You act as if. And you just get to the next second, the next moment, the next hour, the next day, and that's how you have to live. And it's a nightmare. I mean, it is a nightmare. Like, I never thought. I'm like, people who kill themselves and people who commit suicide. I'm like, you're a fucking jerk off. That is like the lowest thing to do until I thought about it. For two, three, four years, I'm like, am I better off killing myself? I got like 3 million worth of fucking insurance here. My wife and my four kids will be safe. We could pay off the fucking house and she could find her merry way. And I saw that battle, like, physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally. Four years of just thinking about it every day, like, because the. Because to be depressed is just brutal, you know what I'm saying? But what it did is it opened up an area for me that I never experienced. And I'm a better person for it right now. So that's why, you know, the bums on the street, I give them money. When we go to Chicago, me and my wife we go to the, you know, thousand dollar dentist, $2,000 dentist, I take all the fucking leftovers and I walk the fucking streets of Chicago and give it out to the homeless fucking people. So in other words, I don't ever look like I'm better than anyone? Because I'm not. Because one second you're on top, next second you're on the F and bottom. And I experienced it. It's not just words or reading it in a book or watching a fucking movie. So I know, you know, I'm 64 right now. Been there, done that. There's nothing I haven't seen, there's nothing I haven't done, nothing I really haven't experienced. So, you know, it makes me a well rounded human, a well rounded individual, you know, so that's why, you know, I'm very, I have an attitude of gratitude, very great, clearly humble, grateful, blessed. I pray every morning, meditate every morning, close it out every night, meditating, praying and just, you know, just saying there, by the grace of God go I.

Interviewer (5:55)

Oh, I love that.

Stu Finer (5:56)

You know what I'm saying? That's really where I'm at.

Interviewer (5:58)

That's one I think about all the time. You know, you get a little impatient with someone or something's in your way when you're having a bad day and it's, you know, the other person doesn't know, it's like, oh, that could be me. Or like I could be in that situation. That's a great perspective to have. But isn't it funny how in life, you know, you have to know what the worst is, whatever your worst is, to know what the good is, to know how good things can feel, you know, you can't. You wouldn't know, like if you just lived an easy life. Everything's kind of given to you. You don't have any struggle, no reason to worry about when to survive, or, you know, having existential thoughts like you did, you wouldn't even know that you have it good. But when you go through something like you did for that long, I mean, seven years is a crazy long time. Four years to be thinking about taking your own life with the family and everything as well, and, and having that hanging over your head, that's. That's a crazy long time. But like now, as you just explained beautifully, like, you harness that and you're able to use that and understand, like, oh, that's where it can be. Here's where it's great though.

Stu Finer (6:58)

Exactly, exactly.

Interviewer (7:00)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (7:00)

So, you know, and then I don't know where you Want to start? But we could start at the very, very beginning.

Interviewer (7:05)

That's exactly what I wanted to do. You read my mind.

Stu Finer (7:07)

Good.

Interviewer (7:08)

Because, like, people are listening to you right now. Who? Those who actually don't know who the great Stu Finer is. People are listening. You're like, who the fuck is this guy? Just dropping some bars to open a podcast. But before we actually get to your story, I have to say, yes, you are the owner of the funniest video I have ever seen in the history of my life. It is a video I send to people probably at least once a month in some context. I have a 10 second clip of it that I send as a meme to people when. Whenever something goes wrong in my life and I like to play it right now.

Stu Finer (7:39)

Sure.

Interviewer (7:39)

So that you can give me the play by play of what it felt afterwards. But, Danny, if we can pull up that video, I have it on that link. My. I was. I was explaining to my dad yesterday who was coming in. He's like, stu Finer. Stu Finer. I'm like, you know the video of the guy screaming at the Cowboys Seahawks game? He's like, no way. All right, yeah, let's play it. Camera five. Beautiful five on. On DVE money. Look at this kid.

Stu Finer (8:07)

Yeah.

Interviewer (8:07)

All right, you ready? Yep. All right.

Stu Finer (8:18)

All right, lane two and a half, three.

Interviewer (8:19)

We cover the Cowboys. It's dead time. They're up 10. It's a two and a half cover. You got money on the Cowboys. Seahawks score a garbage time TD with a minute left. They need to do an onside pick, but anyone else would take an extra point. So it's three and you cover, but for some reason.

Stu Finer (8:42)

Here we go. Finger point. Here it is. No, no, No. Stop them. Stop them. You.

Interviewer (9:26)

I'm sorry. I'm sorry to be laughing at your pain, but that is the funniest fucking thing. Oh, my God. There we go. Perfect. Perfect. Dan. Well, what's going through your head? I mean, when you take a bad.

Stu Finer (9:37)

Beat like that, that's one of the worst nightmares ever. Because, you know, my mind works very quickly. I'm very glib, I'm very quick. So in other words, I. The minute something happens, that win was hundreds of thousands of dollars. That one. Yes. Where customers pay me for my picks, then they bet on my selections, and then after they win, they either tip me or pay me for future selections. That game was a key, key game where I had a lot of money on the line. So right after it wins, people paying me immediately, my phone blows up. Stu, I fucking love you. You can fuck my wife, you could fuck my girl. You want my daughter to your. You know, like whatever it is. Because gambling is the hardest thing in the world to win. I'm in a business where it is literally the hardest thing to do. So if and when I get on a roll, if and when I win a big game like that, and the potential of that game is enormous. It's just like it's such an emotional, bankrupt, empty horror show. Should I fucking put a gun in my mouth and blow my brains out feeling? Because. Because the. The consequences are, you know, devastating. You know, people come to me, they were already are buried. You know what I mean? No one ever comes to me and goes, stu, never gambled before. Just saw you on bar stool or just heard you're on something and I want to pay you. That's not the story. Sorry is stuff. I did it on my own. I got killed. Then I tried something else and I lost more money. Then I tried to double up and now I'm fucked. I'm in a psychological devastating, depressing state where if I lose this game, Stu, you know, I'm in real life or death trouble that I have no answer for that game. I had a lot of people exactly like that.

Interviewer (11:42)

Oh boy.

Stu Finer (11:43)

So I was counting my money, I was counting the relationships I was going to build, the money I was going to make. And then all of a sudden it's like a trap door and you just fall into fucking hell. You know what I'm saying? Your ball sack is burning on a campfire and you're just in pain. And the pain never goes away. You don't sleep for like. I didn't sleep for like a week after that game because there's no actual way to get out now. Now you gotta talk to hundreds of people about depression, about their catastrophic situation. Do they gotta borrow money, you know, sell their house, go to their parents and tell them what they did, you know, people who took money from their businesses, you know, and it's just, you know, the consequences are severe. That's why gambling is for the rich to have fun and lose money.

Interviewer (12:38)

Right?

Stu Finer (12:38)

Lose money. Gambling and losing are equal. You know what I'm saying? That's why it's so dangerous now. The gambling is legal.

Interviewer (12:47)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (12:48)

And everybody can do it. The only good thing is by 21 years old, when you can legally gamble, you get murdered. By, you know, mid-20s, you stop or you take a zero off of it. Like everybody should gamble every single fucking day. No issue about it. It's so much fun. It Also teaches you life lessons. It teaches you to have control, to have composure, to have control. Yeah, absolutely. Because if you gamble too much money and you have no control, similar to gambling in life, in business, in relationships, whatever it is, if you have no control, you're going to fuck up your life. Gambling really teaches you the hard lessons of life. So it's a negative where you're going to get murdered most of the time. Get, you know, people get killed gambling. They don't lose a little, they lose a lot. They lose 10 times what they should, you know, losing. They're betting 10 times what they should be betting. So in other words, that specific game, God did I have like, you know, like interventions with people. And it was really ugly. It was very fucking ugly.

Interviewer (13:53)

But do you like, I love the point you make about like. Well, it's, it's for the rich to have fun and be willing to lose money and whatever. But when you're, that is the thing, like especially now with everything being legalized with gambling, it's free will, people can decide to do it. But you know, people have a predilection sometimes towards being addicted to things they shouldn't be addicted to, like, you know, your business. And we'll explain all the context on this in a little bit, people. But this is a good point right here. You're on. So I don't want to take you off it. Your business is to be able to handicap things and give people the best advice they can get so that they can gamble and you know, try to win. But like, you know, if you're being paid by some people sometimes where you're like, dude, you're taking a line of credit on your 5 year old business or something like that, just to bet on the Seahawks, maybe you should like not do this. Like, are those, do you ever think about having those conversations that are against putting money in your pocketbook but also like, maybe helping the person who like clearly isn't seeing they're not helping themselves.

Stu Finer (14:47)

Before barstool, I've been with Barstool since 2016. So before Barstool, no, because my clientele was 40, 50, 60 year olds, men, women that have either inherited money through death, accident, luck, men and women who've built businesses up from nothing and now are worth hundreds of thousands, Millions. Hundreds of millions in certain circumstances. Billions. Okay? People who have fuck you money, you know, trust fund people. Those were the people my entire life that bet with me. Because first of all, I'm charging anywhere between 100 to 50,000 per day, week, month, so I'm charging, charging absurd numbers. You're paying me up front, you know, you're not paying me on the comm. You're paying me upfront for my expertise, for my experience doing this. I created the sports gambling, handicapping, pick selling business in 1980. I was the first person to go big mainstream. I had 220 full and part time people working for me. It was a boiler room operation. I was the first to advertise on espn. I was the first to go nationwide and blow it out. So in other words, when I started, first of all, to pay me up front, you have to have. Fuck you, money.

Interviewer (16:17)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (16:17)

And then to gamble, you know, you have to have money. All of a sudden, with Barstool, my audience is now like 18 to 25 year olds. Yeah, that's my whole audience. So I had to literally say to the fucking person, you know, like a lot of people in when I started with Barstool still were betting on credit. Credit's death. Because the bookmaker or the sportsbook knows that. Give the person credit because they're going to lose all their money and then they'll pay it out because they want to gamble again. And in reality, the only way to make money back that you lose gambling because you're going to lose 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times more than you really thought is to gamble in their mind, like, I just lost 10,000 in 10 seconds. I got to fucking work my dick off to make this money back in the real world. You know what I'm saying? So my audience really shifted. So now with Barstool, when I get these people on the phone, I'm like, listen, hey, slow the fuck down here. You don't got to, you know, I don't give a fuck how much money you have. You know, you have to just realize gambling's for the rich to have fun and lose money. It's like you going to a movie, going to a show, spending money on a great meal. But they don't fucking listen. Nobody listens. They're like, yo, Stu Finer, Al Pacino played you in the movie. You invented the business. You got millions of dollars. Men want to be you, women want to be with you. You're a living fucking legend, Stu. We believe in you. So people blindly trust me. Like, you know, like I'm their priest, you know what I'm saying? Like, they trust me with their fucking life. And catastrophically, when I go, like, I'm going to lose guaranteed 40% of the time. Yeah, you know, 60%. Winning is inhuman. It's unbelievable. Yeah.

Interviewer (18:16)

You get a 20% spread on your wins to losses, you can make some fucking money.

Stu Finer (18:20)

Unbelievable. 60%. And so in other words, if you're with me when I hit 40% or you're with me when I hit 20%, I'm going to wreck you. So in other words, with barstool, I put the brakes on. With barstool, I understand the client. I talk to the client a little more. I ask him what's up? Rather than just, just look at, hey, let me just take 100,000 out of this guy. He's worth 10 million. Who gives a fuck? You know, when people come to me and go, stu, I lost 2.2 million. You know, I got, I, you know, I make a million dollars a year, but I lost 2.2 million. I need you to help me. I don't really worry about that guy, because that guy is, you know, that guy's set. He understands the consequences. He's a million dollar earner and he could lo. Yeah, but not these kids that are going to college, right, that are, you know, bleeding their parents for their money or selling marijuana or coke or molly or whatever the concert tickets, whatever the they're doing, robbing, you know, whatever they're doing, I. I got it. I teach them about life. And that's why gambling is such a great Alexa, it's such a great lesson for life. Because you think one thing, but that's not the reality of what the story ends up to be.

Interviewer (19:36)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (19:37)

You know what I mean? You can ruin your fucking life. You can piss away money that could put you in a hole, that you can make other bad decisions. Then all of a sudden you're cranky with your girl, you lose a relationship. You are late to work because you got to maneuver and you're not performing well, you lose your fucking job. Then all of a sudden, you know, you start lying, you start cheating, you start stealing. So gambling could force you in a bad situation that really put you in a corner where you got to make a decision on your fucking life. And hopefully you understand where you put everything in perspective. Okay, I could gamble forever, but I got to take zeros off of what I want, of what I'm doing, and that's really how you know gambling works.

Interviewer (20:23)

When did you, like, when did you get into gambling? How young were you?

Stu Finer (20:29)

So we grew up in Brooklyn, Long in Brooklyn. I could New York. So my father was an Oakland Raider fan and a Minnesota Viking fan. So I'm talking when I was, let's say six, my brother was five okay, this is 1966, 1967.

Interviewer (20:50)

He had two teams.

Stu Finer (20:51)

Yes, he was a Raider fan and a Viking fan.

Interviewer (20:54)

That's a violation.

Stu Finer (20:55)

And so I became a Raider fan. Luckily, my brother became a Viking fan. Vikings lost fucking four Super Bowls. They were dog shit. Have never won a fucking Super Bowl. Never will. The Raiders were an unbelievable team in the 70s. They were one of the best teams ever. And into the 80s, you know, they got a ton of Super Bowls. It was John Madden's team in 76. We won the first Super Bowl. And then what happened is the thing that got me into this business was the Raiders winning their second Super. But let me just answer your question. So we used to go to the bowling alley. My father, we went to. I was raised Jewish and although I married, married Irish Catholics. So the only people you trust in the world are Irish Catholic people.

Interviewer (21:42)

Oh, really?

Stu Finer (21:43)

That you could. Fucking Irish Catholics are the only people you actually can trust. They're great, they're trustworthy. They're going to fucking heaven. And so thank God. So I went to the bowling alley with my father when he was in 12 and 13, and it was the Farmingdale Jewish Center's bowling league. So they gave out. What they call then is these little parlay cards. We had a list of all the NFL games and all the college football games and all the fathers would be circling these teams and betting and everything. I asked my father about it and he said, the way you make money on these cards, Stu, is you go against the grain, against the public, against public perception. You take dog shit teams getting points at home, you take better defenses and at home plus points because you have a tremendous edge. And he sat me down and he taught it to me. He said, stu, there is no value betting the better team because the odds maker makes a line and he has to attract people to not bet the favorite. So the underdog gives you the best value. So 12 years old, 13 years old, I looked at these parlay cards and it gave me a perspective on a very, very great, knowledgeable lesson about how to gamble. So I am always. Not always, but I like to look first. I want to bet a team that can't win, like, cannot win. Hence New York giants. Last night, 88% of the fucking public was on the Eagles. They were bidding the Eagles like the game was fixed. They were betting the Eagles, like Giants have no shot. Now based on last week when they played the Saints, they don't have a shot. And based on the Eagles being 4, 0 and losing their first game to the Broncos where they could have won that game, but they didn't. You have the Eagles off a loss. Super bowl champs, always beat the Giants. Saquon wanting to piss on his prior team that didn't give him the contract, the money and the respect. And the Giants really suck. I mean they fucking suck. And Jackson darts really showed a lot of holes last week against the Saints. So I loved the fucking Giants. Now I never handicap a game. X's and O's, I never handicap a game. My offensive line is going to block your defensive line and I'm going to run the ball or pass the ball or outscore you. That means nothing. Zero, zero. Because if that worked, there wouldn't be any gambling because smart people would make money.

Interviewer (24:41)

Right?

Stu Finer (24:41)

Smart. There's 12 year old kids that know every player, every nuance, every past performance, every stat. And they know everything and they could line it up and they could beat you. That's not how it works. Gambling doesn't work like that. How. And 80% of people bet like that and that's why they lose. Okay? The way I do it, against the grain, against the public dog shit teams. And I look for where the sharp money goes.

Interviewer (25:11)

Sharp money.

Stu Finer (25:11)

Sharp money meaning 30 minutes before the game, sharp people come in late. And that's what I follow.

Interviewer (25:22)

So how do you track that? Like on, on the.

Stu Finer (25:25)

Everybody has it now, whether you're. Whether it's DraftKings, FanDuel bet 365 all the Vegas casinos, any of the Las Vegas Insider covers scores and odds. Any of these people that provide scores, odds, lines, injured weather reports in a, in a platform on the Internet they give you the splits. I am looking for late money coming in last minute dog shit teams. No one's betting them, no one gives them a shot. Hence New York Giants last night. And that's how I make my money. That's why I am extremely valuable. That's why I'm the best in the world. Because twofold, number one, you're never going to bet the teams that I bet because they suck. No one wants a better game. Before the game starts, you feel defeated. Right before the game starts, you got to smoke four joints or you know, take 10 quaaludes because you're fucking, you're depressed before the game starts. Because if I'm wrong, which 40% of the time I am the gate. You're out of the game in the first quarter, you're dead. And no one wants to do that. People, people would rather lose betting the bet the better team than win betting shit Win betting shit. Like again last night, Kennesaw State played latex.

Interviewer (26:54)

Kennesaw State, Yeah.

Stu Finer (26:55)

They were plus seven and a half, and 90% of the money was against them. 90% and they fucking won. 35, seven. And I took them plus seven and a half. And I won outright. So those are the games that I make my money on. So in addition to me, why people pay me is because I have a skill set. They're never going to pick the games I'm picking, first of all. And second of all, when I do win, I show a skill set that 99% of people don't have, which is betting a game that is an underdog or a dramatic upset.

Interviewer (27:37)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (27:37)

And that's how I live to make my money. Now, does it always work? Of course not. Absolutely not. Because 40% of the time I get blown out. And when I get blown out, I get humiliated, which looks like I don't even know what I'm doing. Like, if I take a dog shit team at a college football certain times and I get beat 56, nothing. Certain people will never pay me again. Yeah, they're like, stu, fuck it. I could lose my own money, you know, because again, what I said is people don't come to me with a clean slate. So I have a week or two or three weeks or a month to lose. And then eventually get hot. And long term, I'll make the money. They're like, stu, I gotta win tonight. I don't. I don't have fucking time for you to get hot. I need to win right now. Not because of you, not because of your circumstances, but because that's reality. I'm stuck, Stu. I need to win. And so, in other words, very hard. My business, the hardest business in the world, you know, because gamble, winning, gambling, there are 1% of 1% of 1%. And people don't actually realize it. You get murdered gambling. You don't just lose a little. You don't break even. There's two types of gamblers. A loser and a liar and a loser. Because there are no winners. And you could say to me, stu, it's got to be winners.

Interviewer (28:55)

No, there's no winners.

Stu Finer (28:56)

There's no winners.

Interviewer (28:57)

So why do you do it?

Stu Finer (28:58)

Because it's the greatest form of entertainment ever. And because people who are successful and people who are great at whatever they do are so competitive that they're like, well, fuck you. I'm gonna beat the fucking odds. I'm gonna beat the sp. Going to beat my bookmaker. I'm going to be the One, because I'm successful and everything else. People told me couldn't, couldn't go into the car lot business. I have 40 car lots right now. I'm making 30,000 a day. People said the Internet wasn't going to work. I'm making millions of dollars right now. Whatever their vocation is, they've risen to the top. But that doesn't mean jack shit when talking about gambling. Gambling, everybody's equal. Everybody's equal, whether it's Bill Gates, whether it's Elon, whether it's Trump, whether it's Julian, whether it's Jufina. Equal playing field. So knowledge of the sport, knowledge of the players, knowledge of past performance means nothing because then they would disallow people a bet. Like any head coach could go to Vegas right now and bet a game. He has no edge. He knows jack shit. He knows as much as any Joe Blow because the line is the equalizer. The odds makers put a line out that makes both teams equal. And I always feel that it gives the underdog the edge because you need a little, little juice, little sizzle to make people bet the underdog, to balance the money out. Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer (30:31)

Is that strictly how they do it? Like, you have a game, let's say you finish the Sunday Monday slates, right? So weeks over, you have a new week of the NFL games coming out. And so the initial lines come out, whatever it is, Tuesday morning, Monday night, when they decide that Eagles versus Cowboys, they're going to make this line four and a half. Do they just start it somewhere where they're like, okay, that looks like it could be. And then see what the action is and strictly just move it based on people bringing in money.

Stu Finer (30:59)

Correct. What they have is they open like Sunday night for the following week's worth of games. They open that line to the sharpest gamblers in the world and they allow them to bet before they actually put a hard line out to the public. Like, there's a line out Sunday night for the following week. But, but people who bet, let's say a million dollars a game, $2 million a game, $5 million a game in a syndicate where you have thousands of gamblers put in money similar to like, you know, whatever they, they bet in a group.

Interviewer (31:32)

Right, right.

Stu Finer (31:34)

The Shaw people, the odds maker allows these people to bet and then they adjust off of them because they have. They respect their opinion, they respect them, and then they actually manipulate the line based on what you just said. Exactly.

Interviewer (31:50)

Right.

Stu Finer (31:50)

That's how it works.

Interviewer (31:51)

So it's essentially they get like an average idea. And then the rest of the week is dictated by how much money's flowing in one way or the other.

Stu Finer (31:59)

Correct.

Interviewer (31:59)

But the smart money, that comes in late.

Stu Finer (32:01)

Yes.

Interviewer (32:02)

Like you mentioned, you won a game last night that was fucking Kennesaw State. And I can't even say what. Who was the other team?

Stu Finer (32:08)

Latex.

Interviewer (32:09)

Okay, so Kennesaw, Kennesaw State and Law Tech. Like, there's a million games across college football in the NFL alone every weekend. And I'm sure there's a lot of situations where you see dog shit team, last half hour. Smart money's coming in. How do you choose which ones that you're actually gonna gonna gamble on, though?

Stu Finer (32:29)

That's my skill set. That's why people pay me, because I have. Because I am a one trick pony for 45 fucking years. It's the only thing I ever did. I sold marijuana in high school. I sold concert tickets in high school. And then I went to college to become a psychiatrist because I'm a fucking Jew. And my mother's like, you gotta be a doctor or a lawyer or a something. I'm like, you know, mom, I don't have the skill set for this. I'm half a. Be honest. Like, I just want to eat ass lick clit. And, and I want to have a good time. Like, I want to live. Like I'm going to die tomorrow. I've gone to thousands of concerts in my life, and basically, I like to party, I like to go to concerts, I like to have sex. Even at 64 years old, if I fucked your girl, she would know what she's been missing. That's basically what I do.

Interviewer (33:27)

Do it.

Stu Finer (33:28)

And so in other words, you have to really zone in on my experience.

Interviewer (33:38)

Hey, guys, if you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button. It's a huge help. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.

Stu Finer (33:44)

So that's why I am worth paying. People say, tout's a scam stu. You're a scam stu. Bet your own money while you betting other people's money. Why don't you just bet games and stuff? This is what I do. This is my vocation.

Interviewer (33:57)

Oh, wait, is that, Is that what you're doing? A lot of, like, people give you money and.

Stu Finer (34:01)

No.

Interviewer (34:01)

Okay.

Stu Finer (34:02)

They pay me for my picks.

Interviewer (34:03)

That's it. Okay.

Stu Finer (34:04)

Actually, I don't care who they bet with. I don't refer them to bet with anybody.

Interviewer (34:08)

I, I was going to say that's a slippery slope.

Stu Finer (34:10)

No, no. And people do. There's 99% of the people in my business are whores. Lies and scams should be dead, should be shot. They give out both sides of the game. So they guaranteed some money. They lie, cheat, steal to the client. They make up just prefabrications, just total utter bullshit. Then they also bookmake you that they say. They say, can you bet 10,000 game? No, my bookmaker only lets me bet a thousand. Hey, I got this guy. Give me his number. Meanwhile, it's the phone next to this guy changes his voice and he goes, hey, how you doing? What the fuck you need? Call me back in 20. I'm fucking busy. Call me back in 30 minutes. Click. Then you call back in 30 minutes. Hey, fucking, I'm busy. Call me tomorrow. Click. And then now they set you up. They're like, yeah, you got a $10,000 credit line. You lose your money. If you won, you were never getting paid. If you lose, you're going to pay. So in other words, so what? I'm very clean in what I do. I'm very. From day one. Day one. You know, I could have probably robbed people for hundreds of millions of dollars because I had a lot of billionaire customers, especially in the 80s and 90s, that would trust me with their life. They would be like, you know, stu, here's the money. Here's the money. Go bet it for me. You know what I'm saying? So in other words. And that's what people do. So you got to be very, very careful. I wouldn't trust anyone in my industry. Zero. Besides me, you know, because I.

Interviewer (35:39)

My cousin, Anthem Book, he's pretty good. He's a good guy.

Stu Finer (35:42)

Oh, good.

Interviewer (35:42)

I'd like him.

Stu Finer (35:43)

Fair enough. But because I'm fully transparent, and then obviously with bar stool, I, you know, I can't make no mistakes. There's, you know, this. I can say anything and do anything. Cannot do that.

Interviewer (35:55)

Right?

Stu Finer (35:55)

Cannot ever maneuver like that. And I wouldn't do it anyway, because I have a conscience. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm a good, loving person. I'm a child of God. If I murder you and I lose 30 games in a row, that's how it fucking is. It can happen. It absolutely has happened. You can never guarantee anything's going to win. Now, I believe that the game is going to win, right? When it goes, everything's in my favor. And I have a tremendous edge with my system and evaluating it because I got 45 years doing this. Not four weeks, not four months, not four years. 45 fucking years. So in other words. But Nothing's ever guaranteed. And the more you need a game as a gambler, the more you put yourself in a bad spot where you have to have it never happening.

Interviewer (36:45)

Well, that's the other thing too, Stu. It's like, to an extent, everything in life, whether you open a business, a business needs people to buy the product. Even if you do the best job, sometimes things out of your control, they won't buy it. But with gambling especially, it's completely out of your control. You're betting on something that you know. You're not on the team, you're not going in the game. You're not controlling the actual outcome. You're betting just based on information you have.

Stu Finer (37:11)

Have.

Interviewer (37:11)

I would argue there's some similarities with, like, the stock market, to be clear, but there's more things in the stock market that I think you have somewhat control over. Meaning, like, you can pour through financials and cash flows and stuff that maybe you can't do in gambling. But, like, did you ever wonder, like, damn, maybe maybe some of this is, like, beyond it because it's not in my control. I could do something else where, like, I'm thinking when you're a teenager and stuff and getting into this, like. Like, I could do something else where I have things that are more in my control. Like, I know maybe I'm a great salesman, so maybe I can sell cars because I can control, like, being able to close a deal more than I can control Eric Dickerson running for 100 yards or not. You know what I mean?

Stu Finer (37:51)

You ever have that thought? Well, like, before I got into the business in, like, 11th grade, had a couple of quick jobs. I sold unsold airtime for radio stations in 1977, and I was like, like amazing at it. I also work for a company that sold all purpose cleaners, maintenance, chemicals, odor granules to farmers throughout the country. Great at that. But it didn't give me the buzz of gambling. Now, let me tell you. Well, so getting back to the parlay cards. Yeah, I got very good at picking three winners in a week, which paid like 6 to 1. And I gave those picks through my father's advice and experience to his friends. And we'd go to bowling, and everybody was on my dick. They're like, stu, who do you like? Who do you like? Who do you like? And I had a good opinion. I had a better opinion than them. I had a bet. And my father never bet.

Interviewer (38:55)

Really?

Stu Finer (38:55)

Never.

Interviewer (38:56)

But he taught you.

Stu Finer (38:56)

Yes, Never bet the parlay cards, even never bet. But if he was watching a Raider game or watching a Viking game, and that game lost. He would trash the house. He would beat my mother. He would beat me and my brother physically. Physically. So in addition to his knowledge and experience of sports, his passion for sports, I watched a game a little bit differently than you would because I'm getting my fucking head handed to me if this team lost. He was a rageaholic. He was a psycho fuck. Love, my father, may he rest in peace. He's dead a couple of years now. Greatest guy ever. But a complete fucking psychopath. Like, a complete rageaholic. So.

Interviewer (39:40)

So you had a great relationship with him despite that.

Stu Finer (39:43)

100%. 100%. I overlooked a lot.

Interviewer (39:46)

You overlooked a lot.

Stu Finer (39:47)

Him being physical, me and my brother, him being physical with my mother.

Interviewer (39:51)

What made you overlook that?

Stu Finer (39:57)

I summed him up really quickly. Nothing ever went right for him. Like, he owned a. He worked for a company called letorama, and they used to make letters and signs for businesses. And his two biggest accounts in the 70s was HBO and Madison Square Gardens. So in my house, we'd have, like, thousands of letters all over the place. And I watched him go to work, and I went with him to work and I helped him. And I was really poor at doing what he needed me to do, which is put the letters in and line them up correctly and make them straight. And I was bad at it. Like, I really was bad. But I just watched how he worked, and nothing went good for him. He would always have these delusions and dreams that this was going to happen. It never did. My father had the biggest set of balls in the world. Biggest. Was not afraid of anyone. But for some reason, he could only do tasks 75%. He could bring it. And then the other 25% never got done. Like, so he could fix anything. But in my house, the toilet never worked. The window was always open. The refrigerator was always on an angle. You know, just like crazy shit that simple people would have been able to finish or get someone to help you. He's like, no. So three quarters of the shit in my house never worked. And him and my mother fought about money always. And it affected me emotionally, spiritually, mentally affected my brother, affected the relationship with my mother and father. And I had the perception that if I can make money, I could give them money and they wouldn't fight. And also, that was the key to life, making money. So what happened was, in 1980, I'm going to college with my wife. I married my childhood sweetheart. I took it to the prom in 11th grade. We were both virgins. She wouldn't me that night. What a fucking horror show. I thought I was in. It was. This was. She was a 10, I was a 6. She didn't know it, she's never getting rid of me. But she had a in, drop dead great eyes, beautiful hair, picture perfect almost a Farah faucet face and a fucking ass and a fucking box that you would just come looking at. All right? So I'm thinking this girl's had to get fucked before. So the reason I took it to the prom, like I'm getting laid. P.S. she's a virgin. I'm a virgin. I had to wait four months. July 4th, 1978.

Interviewer (42:24)

Longest four months of your life.

Stu Finer (42:25)

Oh my God. July 4th, 1978. She bled on my friend's bed at a 4th of July party. Never forget it. It was fucking great. You know, last like 10 seconds, but it was fucking great, you know, Blood on the fucking thing. So anyway, so we're going to college at Nassau Community College. And the Oakland Raiders are playing the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. Correct.

Interviewer (42:47)

Damn it.

Stu Finer (42:48)

And it was Ron Jaworski as the quarterback, Dick Vermeil as the head coach. And they were the darlings of the NFL. And in this specific game, they were a four and a half point favorite. And the Oakland Raiders won their first Super bowl in 1976. They couldn't beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. They should have won like three Super Bowls earlier. But 75 they lost on a fluke play. 76 they won.

Interviewer (43:12)

Was that the Immaculate Reception?

Stu Finer (43:14)

Correct. Correct. When it popped off, Franco Harris, you know, George should have had Franco Harris, took it, went for the touchdown. So 1980, me and my father are watching TV. It's the Friday before the Sunday super bowl. And this guy comes on tv, his name is Ed Horowitz. And he created a. He was an accountant by trade. And he created a short form tax form that he made a million dollars where you do your taxes. There was a form you filled out and it eliminated like 90% of the hoopla. Made him made a million dollars. He took the money and at least this was his story that we were watching on TV, Channel 4. Never seen a handicapper before, never heard of this. He took his money and he put it into computers and he created a system that allowed him to pick winners. Then he went on this eight minute diatribe about the Philadelphia Eagles were going to murder the Oakland Raiders. Me and my father looking at like, that's not going to happen. But you're watching a guy on tv, he's an expert we're sitting in fucking den eating cheese doodles. So got to respect them. Fucking Raiders murder them as we thought. But that the second that game went final, I turned to my father, I said, dad, I'm not going to be a psychiatrist. I'm going into this fucking business. This jerk off can be an expert and so clueless and so long on what me and my father said, the most simple game in the history of life. I'm going into this business. Anybody could do this business. It's the easiest fucking business in the world. And that's how I started. And I, and again, I started with the underdogs. And then in the 80s, I. My percentage in the 80s was unbelievable because you didn't have, first of all, you had no Internet, you had no phones, you had no real, you had no real way to know a lot. So the underdog, the home underdogs, was just stealing money. It was stealing money, you know, and there was a lot of people, when you're successful, you get behind your team. And a lot of people got behind the better teams, the best teams who were always the favorites. So it always gave me such an edge. So I did phenomenal picking in the 80s.

Interviewer (45:37)

One thing I always think about, and I've never gone through and like tried to reverse deductive reason this and see if mathematically it works out, but if you had a system where you are only allowed to bet on in the NFL slate every week, just NFL 16 games, 14 games, because there's two, two buys, whatever it is, you are only allowed to bet on the home dog and you can only bet an equal amount on each of those games, whether it's two games or 10 games, where that's the case. If you did that for a full season every year, wouldn't you probably win like you'd make a spread there, meaning maybe you win 65% of the time. No, no, no, it's not that simple.

Stu Finer (46:20)

Well, it was in the 80s, up until about 93, 1993. What happened in 93 offshore sports books happened, where you were, where you were illegally, illegally betting offshore, where like there was a sportsbook that you would have to wire money out of the country, whether it was Panama, Curacao, Costa Rica. Then what happened is the world now could bet at the sportsbook and they became very sharp with the line. Very, very sharp. Because when I grew up and I. Oh, I'm sorry. When I grew up and I was in the business.

Interviewer (47:01)

Keep it pointed at you.

Stu Finer (47:02)

Yes, yes. When I grew up and I was in the business you, everybody was betting illegally with local bookmakers. Unless you went to Nevada to bet because the only place it was legal up until like the, the early 90s with these offshore sportsbooks that were illegal anyway, you were never allowed to legally do it, but everyone did it anyway. Similar to how they were betting illegally with their local bookmaker, the mafia bookmaker. You would have to go to Vegas, and no one went to Vegas. And none of my customers were in Vegas, they were just locals.

Interviewer (47:33)

But you would talk like they were correct. Yeah, you make the assumption it's not your fault.

Stu Finer (47:37)

Exactly, exactly. So it became very, very hard to win after that, a hundred times harder. So you had to really grind and there was not any room for mistakes. Mistakes. Gambling is this. You bet different amounts of money on different games. So let's say you're betting 500 a game, 500 a game, 500 a game,. You're on a roll, you're up 5,000, then all of a sudden you bet 5,000 on one game. Yep. And you lose it. You could be nine wins, one loss and you're losing. So that's the death of a gambler. That's as long as you're betting equal amounts, equal increments, you're okay. You're never going to murder yourself. You start murdering yourself when you take a shot, when, whether you've grinded out and you got all this money now, you take a shot, it always loses, it always loses, like almost 95% of the time. So the key to staying alive gambling, obviously is to bet little amount of money. And if you're going to bet, you have to bet equal amounts on every game and just enjoy the ride, enjoy the fun, enjoy the experience. Now if you're a trust fund kid or you have fuck you money, you got Dave Portnoy money, you got big cat money, you got KFC money, you know, you got Ryan Whitney money, biz, nasty money, then it doesn't matter because you know you can't hurt those people. You really can't, because you know they're making hundreds of millions of dollars. Fine. They lose a million, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million. It's not good. Fucking sucks, you know, it's like you just had your girlfriend get fucked up her ass on YouTube by your worst enemies. But financially you're okay, you know what I'm saying? But most people, that's not their case. Most, you know, just because you could. Like when I was a kid in the 80s and nine in the 80s, 70s, you had two millionaires, you had like Jay Paul Getty and you had Howard Hughes. That was it. Now everybody in the Mother's a Millionaire and you're watching them on the Internet so you think you know them. You think you know what they do. Like the Internet is a force, it is a scam, it is tv. Nothing's real. Nothing is real. So that's why, that's why people say when you're depressed, you stay off the Internet because it seems like, wow, everyone's got the world by the balls. Everyone's happy, everyone's going places, doing things. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. And they think they know the person. You have no fucking idea what's going on. You just don't know. Years ago you did. Years ago, you know everybody in the Mother's a Millionaire. Now you can make money immediately because the world is your oyster. On the Internet, you have a good idea, it works, you implement it, and overnight you know you're a millionaire. So a lot of people live in a Pollyanna dreamlike world. And that's why I think the country's so fucked right now. And I think 100%, 100. Oh my God. Oh God, the 20 year olds from 20 to 30 right now are fucking lost. Are so lost. So soft, so unmotivated, don't even want to make money.

Interviewer (51:02)

Why do you think that?

Stu Finer (51:06)

I think we've been sold a bill of goods. That the United States is the greatest country that ever lived and we're so much better than everyone else and that we're special and we're entitled and we're better where we're not. We've been sold that story since day one. And a lot of what the country has done, the negatives don't. People don't know here. They only know outside the country, like everybody, you know, like these other countries say, well, the United States is not perfect, they're not God, they didn't invent everything, but that's what we're sold. So I think as a child, your, your security about your experiences, your life, your intelligence. How your life is going to end up is, hey, as long as I do the right thing in this country, I'm going to roll. That's not how it is no more. Not how it is no more. Because other people from other countries have come here and said, you have no idea what it is to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You have no idea what it is to starve. You have no idea how shit these other countries are. So when we come in here, we're going to outwork you we're going to out think you and we're going to fucking own everything. We're going to take it over. So I think that it's a really rough spot for people in this country right now. Now. And for some reason the entitlement is gross. Yes.

Interviewer (52:31)

Like waiting for you to say that it's, it's gross. Yeah.

Stu Finer (52:34)

Like how get a job, get out of your parents house. You know, I was out of my parents house at 18 because first of all I didn't want my parents to know what I did, you know, I don't want you to know what I do. I'm, you know, my parents, like parents are now friends with their family, friends with their children, best friends. They can't crack the whip.

Interviewer (52:56)

Right.

Stu Finer (52:56)

You, you know, you can't be a best friend to someone and then all of a sudden try to discipline that person because there's no edge. There's different. So I feel bad for the people in this country right now. I feel bad for the kids because it just seems like. And then they go to these colleges and then you get some wacko professors teaching teaching stuff that's illegal. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like you should never be able to teach that. What the. Are you out of your mind? So I worry about like, like to have children right now you could have a lot of balls because.

Interviewer (53:33)

Gotta have a lot of money too.

Stu Finer (53:35)

Yeah, well, a ton of expensive. Correct. A ton of money. I bought my first house when I was 23. I paid 165,000. Same house now is 1.3 million.

Interviewer (53:45)

Oh, you still live in the same one?

Stu Finer (53:46)

No, no, I still. But it's like two seconds away.

Interviewer (53:50)

Oh, I got.

Stu Finer (53:50)

So I went to, I went to another house. Right. But in 1990. But it's very hard right now.

Interviewer (53:58)

Yes, it is.

Stu Finer (53:58)

It's very. And, and people like, in other words, they don't have the tough love and they don't have the emotional muscle. See, you know, it's failure after failure after failure. Don't lose your enthusiasm. But I feel bad because kids are not built like right, right now. They're like failure after failure and I'm a fucking basket case.

Interviewer (54:21)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (54:21)

I'm afraid I'm not going to maneuver no more. I'm going to get a set job and grind out and have a shit life and my expectations have been crushed and people are depressed and people are scared. So in other words, very hard to be a child in this world right now. When I was a kid, we're a balls, you Know, like there was nothing was ever gonna happen.

Interviewer (54:44)

You didn't have these distractions though, too.

Stu Finer (54:46)

Correct. You know what I mean?

Interviewer (54:48)

Like, it was go out and fucking touch grass, sniff the air, figure out where the wind's blowing, what you want to do, get after it. Like you're sitting there watching the super bowl with your dad. Like, you know what? That guy, that guy's a jerk off. I'm gonna be a handicapper. You go out, you build the business, you make a lot of phone calls, you work out of a fucking boiler room. You know what I mean? You start something nowadays, people are like, well, you know, and it's.

Stu Finer (55:11)

It's a disease.

Interviewer (55:12)

It is.

Stu Finer (55:13)

It's a disease. You know, I mean, I see people on at 7:24. Like, even when my friends come over or my friends, my kids come over, the kids still live at the house. I got all these kids. My kids still live at my house. They're never present. They're literally never present. Like, like, like I have to say. Did you just see what happened? No. Because they're like this.

Interviewer (55:36)

Yep.

Stu Finer (55:37)

You know what I'm saying? Like a bomb could have blown up and they're like this. So in other words. And that's the world we live in right now. So you really have to have emotional muscle. You have to be able to build emotional muscle so that failure after failure, you don't lose your enthusiasm. My generation was bred on that. My generation is, you're guaranteed shit. I'm giving you shit. Go fucking make your own way. And you learned, you know, by design, that that's how it is. Yes, but that's a great, great thing to be able to do. Now it just seems it's a lost art, you know, People just don't have the gumption and just keep working hard and they're stuck. Then they look at the fucking phone and everyone has the world by the balls. Everybody's traveling the world. Everybody has money, everybody's happy. Why am I not? Because this is an illusion. It's a scam. And you just got to work hard. And the key is also that in this country, obviously, still, you could do anything you want, anytime you want, as much as you want. Greatest country in the world times a thousand. Not even close. But you have to have that mindset that it's going to be rough. You're going to have to work your dick off for years on end, not days. People just want immediate satisfaction, immediate gratification. It's not how it works.

Interviewer (57:03)

Almost not how it works.

Stu Finer (57:04)

And the competition is A thousandfold tougher than it used to be.

Interviewer (57:08)

But that also is how you get all your information. It's instant gratification. So they assume it's going to translate correct to life. And it does it. And I love the point you make about kind of that idea that people are constantly seeing what's great, these idealized figures and stuff like that. In a lot of ways, we've been sold that lie because we assume that that's what people gravitate towards. People gravitate towards things that look godly to them or whatever. But my friend Charlie Rocket, who I just recorded with, came up with this amazing theory seven years ago that really, like I would say it changed my life, but that's the wrong way to put it. It cemented how I kind of felt about things and went, oh, my God, that's true about everything. Even though we're living in the social media world. And he called it the IMU theory. You ever hear this before?

Stu Finer (57:56)

No.

Interviewer (57:57)

So I've said this a bunch on the podcast before. Sorry for people that this is repeated too, but he was sitting around one day and he wanted to know who the highest grossing superhero was of all time. Like movies, comics, everything, all in. He said, all right, let's Google it. And to his surprise, it was actually Spider Man. He was thinking it was going to be Batman or Superman. Chisel chin, good looking. All the girls wanted to fuck him. No, Spider man, he was the guy that didn't have the chisel chin. He had a weird talent, right? He grew up in a lower middle class or lower class household. His parents were dead. And then, you know, he had the tragedy of his uncle dying, and he wanted the girl, but he couldn't get the girl. All these things. And he's like, holy shit. Like that. That guy's kind of relatable. So he's like, all right, what's the biggest religion in the world? By following Christianity, okay, Christianity has X billion followers. Who's the leader of their religion? He's like, jesus Christ. Carpenter hung out with poor people in a time where if you rode around on a white horse with golden armor, you would have had everyone following you. He wore basic robes, was someone who spoke to everyone. And he was like, wow, relatable. So he's like, all right, what about corporations? It's the most famous corporation of all time.

Stu Finer (59:09)

Apple.

Interviewer (59:10)

He's like, who founded Apple? Steve Jobs. First corporate guy to lose the suit. He wore a beard. He had flaws. He was open about him. He looked like your dad. Everyone in text Naming their product. And Spiron 6500 or Windows X45 million. He was naming his products Lisa, iPhone, iPod, he was naming the products after you. And then he thought about sports. He's like, not Kobe's fault, not LeBron's fault. They're amazing. But Kobe's the mamba. He's not like you. LeBron's the king. He's born a genetic specimen. Michael Jordan was the dude who was cut from his high school basketball team. Scrawny kid, had to make his way. Even won a national title at unc. Got drafted behind Sam Bowie. Took him seven years to get to the top in the NBA. Quits when his dad dies. He has a personal tragedy on a grand scale. Embarrasses himself on tv, playing baseball. He's like, holy shit, this guy's relatable. So all these kids now have grown up with these phones and the social media to say like, oh my God, look how good they have it. Oh, this trip, travel influencer. They're making so much money. Their life is all beautiful and blue and the skies look incredible. And oh my God, I'll never, I'll never be that. Because all these people are telling them that I'm different than you, I'm above you, and that's what gets the likes and the follows. But in reality, when you look out through the history of humanity, people follow the things that they see most of themselves in. And we've just flipped that paradigm on social media when the answer's still there right in front of us. And I wonder if more people would recognize something like that and see that. It's like, you know what, you're going to have your struggles. Not everything's going to be sunshine and rainbows. You're going to fail once in a while and it's perfectly fine to do that. If that became more acceptable in society, I Wonder if these 20 to 30 year olds you're talking about would have a little bit less of a glib outlook on things and be willing to go after it like they did in your day and like you did to. To make your own business.

Stu Finer (61:00)

Yeah, I agree. I think so. Absolutely. Now I just want to use, let's say Dave Portnoy as an example. People think. Now, obviously Dave Portnoy has it all. Has the money, has the power, has the fame, has the fortune. From 2003 to 2014, he worked seven days a week, 24 hours a day, before he made a dollar, before he made a dollar. 11 years, right? 11 years without making any money. And then when he made his money, he's the hardest working person at his company. He works round the clock. That guy doesn't need to work the rest of his life. He could be retired, traveling the world, but he works harder than anyone and his life is an open book every single day. And you see his flaws, you see his failures, you see his successes and you know, like, he's my idol. He's the best, best of the best, you know, and he would be someone that people can look up to now he's so successful now that people can't touch him no more. So they're like, ah, Dave, everything. You know, you got this person working for you and this person, these people under him, making him money. But that's not actually the case. He's the hardest working person at his company. Always will be, never satisfied, doesn't stop round the clock. Traveling here, there, this. That just, just took on an amazing undertaking of Fox Sports. Now he has the show from 8 to 10am and it's repeated from 10 to 12. He didn't need to do that. Now he's on Fox Sports 1 on Saturday, college game day. He didn't need to do that. He is pulled in so many different directions, but all he does is work. And he, and he leads by example. When you work for his company, he doesn't tell you what to do. He's like, look, I have the platform. Here's your basic salary. I'm not paying you like you're a millionaire. I'm paying you gut level, bottom dollar, go fucking work, work. I got the platform. You should be able to make this platform work for my company and yourself and build it up. So working for Bostil and watching how Dave Portnoy performs and executes and treats people and really his whole mantra and motto, he doesn't sit on laurels. He could have sat on laurels for a decade. Now all he does is work fucking harder and harder every day. He's a great example of the American dream, an American hero. And really who to follow, you know, who to follow.

Interviewer (63:41)

Man of the people too, by the.

Stu Finer (63:43)

Way, 100% and gives multi tens of millions of dollars, you know, tunnels for towers and just saves people's lives. And then the most unique, inexpensive, unbelievable idea, his pizza reviews. How much did that cost? Walking into a pizzeria, getting a pizza, having Frankie film it on his phone. And now he writes like $20 million a year in advertising off of that and it cost him nothing. It was his unique idea of what he loved and he was able to generate it through the world. So in other words, he's a great example of if you want to follow someone to see what they do and how they do it and how they did it and how he did it. Because anyone could have thought of that idea. Yeah, you don't have to be Steve Jobs. You'd have to get a 1600 in your SATs. You could be a half an idiot like stu fine at 550 math, 390 English, you know, dumbest Jew that ever lived. You know what I'm saying? Like, are you really Jewish? Yeah, I'm like a half a fucking idiot. What am I going to do? But in other words, he has amazing ideas, creative ideas, unique ideas, and he's got the biggest set of balls where he's willing to fail in front of the world for all the world to see. And he just works harder and harder and harder. So in other words, he would be. He's a great example of similar to what you were talking about somebody that, that started from nothing, was given nothing and self made.

Interviewer (65:13)

I agree.

Stu Finer (65:13)

You know, self made.

Interviewer (65:15)

Real quick, Stu, I just gotta go to the bathroom, but I want to stay on this because you brought up so many great points.

Stu Finer (65:19)

We'll be right back. Sure it's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no Ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved, initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.

Interviewer (65:48)

Experian. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our US based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply. One of the points you were saying in there that I loved was the whole parents are like buddies with their kids now. They're friends, right? Like it kind of went somewhere along the way. I don't know when it like flipped from son to buddy in, in the way that the communication went. And it's not to say like, you know, parents should be addict to their kids or like act like they're above them all the time. But you know, you guys, when, when you're a parent. I'm not a parent yet. But like you're an age that I've never been and you've been my age in the past. Right. So there's just wisdom you kind of have. But I think a lot of what you're talking about generationally also comes from, not to paint it across the board, but a lot of parenting problems to where people didn't push their kids or encourage them to have to go out and make their own way on some things. Fair to say.

Stu Finer (67:09)

Fair to say. Yes. I think 911 changed everything.

Interviewer (67:13)

Interesting. Why?

Stu Finer (67:15)

I think people first of all were, were very scared for the first time, including myself, that yeah, wow, I could die in a hot second. Like I was, I lived under the Pollyanna umbrella. Like hey, where the United States? Nobody's with us like that. I mean you watched it on TV in other third world countries or other countries, other parts of the world, that chaos. But 911 brought it fucking home to the world that everybody's vulnerable, everybody could be taken out in a hot fucking second. Nobody is really, you know, nobody's safe. Nobody is ever safe. Now in the United States they sold us this bill of goods. We're safe forever. We're better, we're bigger, we're stronger, we're smarter, we're faster. Not actually true. So 911 for me at least I had to take a step back and I had to say to myself, do I want to live under the gun of working so hard under the gun to perform where I have to perform or do I want to just enjoy what I have and enjoy the day much more? Because that could happen to me.

Interviewer (68:43)

Wasn't this during your tough period too? That seven year period where you were.

Stu Finer (68:46)

Really going through it 100% from 1999 to 2007?

Interviewer (68:50)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (68:51)

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And so I think 911 really pulled everything back. And 911 and then I watched including myself, me not crack the whip where get the out of my house to my kids get an apartment. You're not living here. You know, I got a multi million dollar house. I got the most beautiful house you ever saw in your life. If I was my kid, I would never leave. And they might not leave because my wife ain't throwing them out. But I'd be honest with you, before then I taught my kids, hey, by 18 you're out of here. I don't Give a. If you die in the street, street. You're out of here, buddy. You got to make your own way, you know? You're not sucking my dick your whole life for money, for security, for the. The things that you have to learn as a human being to survive on your own. Sure, I'm not gonna. You not gonna leave you, not gonna hang up the phone on you, but by the same token, if I did, you should be able to stand on your own without Me. Me. After 9 11, I got softer. After 9 11, I let things slide that before, that I would never let slide. Never, never. Now, all of a sudden, where my wife would want to mother and nature the children because, you know, the children are always right in the mother's eyes. Right? I would. I would, you know, berate her. Listen, hey, you're killing your kids, you know, that's what you just did. Don't. Don't interject when I'm talking to the kids to discipline them. And you come over me because you're afraid how they fucking feel. After 9 11, I let it slide. I never had the conversation with my wife before then. We fought like cats and dogs. I'm like, you're fucking. We gotta. We gotta. We're building men here because I have four sons. You know, if I had daughters, I'd be building women. But in other words, they got to be independent. And after 9 11, I took a deep breath back and I said, fuck, you know, is. Is it that important?

Interviewer (71:01)

How old were your kids at the time?

Stu Finer (71:08)

11, 9, 6, 2.

Interviewer (71:18)

Okay, so they're all informative years, right? Big time.

Stu Finer (71:21)

I mean, really, from 0 to 5 is how you build it?

Interviewer (71:23)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (71:24)

Be honest with you.

Interviewer (71:25)

Why do you say zero to five?

Stu Finer (71:26)

Because you. Because it's. Because. In other words, it's so easy to not build emotional muscle. It's so easy to let them run amok. It's so easy to just build bad habits. Yes, very bad habits. And as I know as myself, I'm a compulsive overeater, a gambler, a drug addict, abusive language, sexual behavior, compulsive spending, selfishness. So I'm so addicted in so many areas. And, you know, it's almost like the seven deadly sins. I'm not unique, but I struggle with those every single fucking day. There's not one day that goes by that a little bit of that is in me and I can make a. A bad move. I could ruin my life. I could maneuver. I could commit adultery, I could do drugs. I could have unwanted sex with randos. Whatever the fuck it is. I could gamble my life in an area it doesn't have to be even gambling. It could just be. It doesn't have to be gambling on sports per se or gambling casinos. It could be gamble a decision. Trust, trusting people is the most important downfall in people's life. If you're not taught to have emotional muscle and take full responsibility for any situation. Hey, Julian, you're fucking successful. You got money. I'm going to trust you with ABCDEFG and they fully. Trust doesn't work out. I trusted you. Should have never trusted you. I respect you. I understand what you're saying. But there's a line. There's no boundaries, no more. So in other words, for me, once 911 happened, I pulled back. I pulled back. Probably I went too far the other way. I'm like, hey, I'm just happy I have. Well, I'm sorry.

Interviewer (73:29)

No, you're good.

Stu Finer (73:29)

I'm just happy. I'm just happy I have kids. I'm just happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm able to eat, you know, bacon, egg and cheese, two eggs, scrambled on a bagel, hash browns, home fries, then lunch, have twin cheese of bacon, large 5 vanilla milkshake, then roll 5 blunts, then dinner. I'm having filet mignon, lobster tails with my kids and just hanging out, out. I'm not teaching them jack shit. I'm teaching them to have fun. That's not what the father's supposed to do. That's not what parents are supposed to do. Parents are supposed to, I believe, really build emotional muscle to have children independent, to feel confidence with them, confidence within themselves that they could trust themselves, that they don't have to open their lives up to everyone. You don't have to trust everybody. You don't got to tell everybody, take care of yourself. You have to be able to have boundaries. After 9 11, I pulled back a little bit and I'm like, I don't know. I just don't know because I was really shaken by that because I was on my way. I owned a business in Atlanta, Georgia on Roswell Road And I owned 200 score phones in 200 different cities.

Interviewer (74:45)

200 score phones?

Stu Finer (74:47)

Yes. And we gave a score phone in the 80s and the 90s, gave scores, odds, lines, injury, weather reports on a six minute recorded message.

Interviewer (74:59)

Was it you on the recorded message?

Stu Finer (75:01)

No, I had, I had, I had score phone announcers work for me.

Interviewer (75:05)

Were they in India?

Stu Finer (75:07)

No.

Interviewer (75:07)

Okay.

Stu Finer (75:07)

They were in Atlanta, Georgia.

Interviewer (75:08)

That's good.

Stu Finer (75:09)

No, no, no, I Had a. I had a place and I bought the business for eight years, out for the game, 1989 to 1993. I spent 1.6 million a year giving it to someone to advertise me. And I would take the first minute of the ad, first minute of the score phone, and then the rest was content. It was advertising, then content. In 1994, the person who owned the business lost $6 million gambling and had to sell the business overnight. So I was competing against this guy Jim Feist in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the biggest in the world. Like me at and t wise business and me, I bought the business. 4.8 million in 93. In 1994, 4.8 million. So. So I'm flying in 2001, 9, 11 that day on going to LaGuardia Airport, smoking a fucking blunt, ready to go there. And I'm listening on the radio and they're talking about plane hit, second plane hit fucking smoke everywhere. And I'm like, this has got to be fake. This is like war of the worlds. I'm thinking they're running like some sort of scam on the radio, but then it's on every channel. I get to the fucking airport, there's no one at the airport. There's nobody. I get on the phone, I call my wife, she goes, yeah, you better get home, we're at war. So I came home. But in, in Georgia, I owned a school phone operation. So again, and I want to, I want to bring that up a little bit, I paid 4.8 million for that business. That business was worth $10 million in 94. I made my last payment on the business in 1998. Two weeks later, CBS Sportsline opened their website on the Internet that did exactly what I did, but on the Internet put me out of business. I went from 48 million calls to 400,000 calls in six months. Because why would you listen to a six minute recorded message when you got a click away, inundated with ads when you could just do it? My point is also that nothing is ever guaranteed. Yeah, my whole life I said, this is my baby. I was making a million a year off of it and I don't have to work anymore. P.S. internet came, put it out of business. I became antiquated overnight. I became a one, you know, one trick pony. Now I'm, I'm fucking no pony. I got dicks up my ass, fucking people fist fucking me, you know, And I don't want it. So in other words, again, there. Nothing is guaranteed. There are no guarantees. People work Much more efficiently in their heads, much more secure. Believing the dream guaranteed. Everything is going to work out, everything is going to be good. I don't got to put in the work. I don't have to grind. I don't have to worry because everything is going to be okay. That's not true. No, that is so not true. Anything can be taken away in a moment. And again going back to 9 11, that really was my eye opener because I never thought that up until 9 11. Yeah, even on the balls, mice never thought that I'd be like, oh, I'll get help from this one, this one, this one, this one, this one. And the world changed overnight. Yeah, the United States changed overnight and it's never come back.

Interviewer (78:42)

But it's interesting that you tie that down to like the sociological perspective and how p and how it affected people in their homes unknowingly. It's like you don't think about how you parents apparent related to like a terrorist attack. But when, when you go through it and you start to realize the existential thoughts that that kind of thing caused, how it changes your wiring on what's possible or impossible for that matter. You know, it might affect, you know, you actually. Ah, maybe I don't need to get mad about this. Ah, maybe I don't need to raise that point about that. And that creates a trickle down. But like when, when you were growing up, you talked about your father a little bit. What, what was your mom like as a parent? Your dad was really tough and there was some abuse there.

Stu Finer (79:23)

Like total opposite people. For example, my father would like crack us and we'd have bruises on our face and bruises on our arms. And my mother, who's the saint of the earth, the salt of the earth, the nicest person possible, said to my father, howie, don't hit him in the face or the arms, hit him in the stomach. So when they wear a shirt no one would see. Kind of now when I didn't even realize how crazy that was until I went into therapy. You know, when I saw a psychiatrist and I saw a therapist and they would be like, you realize that's why you're a psychopath. That's why you're trying to trash your life with drugs and sex and gambling and compulsive spending and eating. You know, because you know, you, you feel less than you feel when your parents, when your parents make you feel insecure or you live in an insecure home. You grow up insecure and you breed insecurity. So you're never a whole Individual, you don't grow like. You cannot run away from pain. Pain is a great equalizer. Pain teaches you you have limitations. Pain teaches you. Don't do that. It's gonna hurt. Don't touch the flame. You're gonna get fucking burnt. If you grow up in a household that the parents are not healthy. And my father's father died when he was 13. He didn't get along with his brothers and sisters. He had to move out of his house when he was young. Why is he so fucking. That's pretty much it. Okay. My mother, on the other hand, just wanted everything okay. Make believe it's okay. You know, put the. Put the perception, everything's fine, everything's okay, no problems. That's why my father would. My mother. My mother would be hysterical crying. My father would be physical with her, grabbing her, scratching her. Be a hole to do. Doorbell would ring. All of a sudden, my mother's face would go smiley. Tears away. Open the door. Hi, how you doing? Whoa. So I was taught a lot of different.

Interviewer (81:37)

You saw that?

Stu Finer (81:38)

Really taught to be a phony.

Interviewer (81:40)

You taught to be a phony?

Stu Finer (81:41)

Yeah. To stuff the feelings.

Interviewer (81:44)

Yep.

Stu Finer (81:44)

Stuff them down again. Very bad, you know, just a horrific way to live because you never actually tell someone how you feel about them because you're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of it not working out and you feel a little less than. So you'd rather accommodate, whether it's work, whether it's a relationship, whether it's anything. And, you know, you grow up really, you know, like an adult child. I've been an adult child my whole life. I had to go through intense therapy forever. You know, I still see a therapist now to share gut level, to share feelings, to not be judged. Especially now where I'm in like such a big spot where people walk around, you got the one by the balls, you know, like, can't really share a lot with a lot because, you know, 99% of these people on the Internet are just trolls and they want to shred you and they, you know, they're jealous and they would love to get something on you to bring you down. So I think that the 911 for me was such a really, like an eye opening experience. And then my mother, you know, what you asked about, she was like, people pleasing. She's like, make believe everything's okay. But she had a big heart, so that she taught me to help others. Before you helped yourself. You help. You help, help. You give. Don't worry about what you got. You give. Her father was like that. My, my. My mother and my grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side were amazing. My mother and father on my father's side, my grandmother and grandfather. Well, I never met my grandfather because he died when my father was young. They remarried and his mother was tough, my grandmother was tough, and the stepfather was tough too. Great guy, but tough is good. You're supposed to be tough. You don't need to huggy kissy everyone. You don't need to be everybody's best fucking friend. And I lacked in life the ability when I was young, into my 20s and 30s and even my 40s of people. It bothered me when people didn't like me. Most people are not gonna like you. Where is it said that people are supposed to like you? That's not reality. Reality is most people are not going to like you. You're not going to get along with a lot of people. People are going to, you know, have different ideas. You're going to be headbutting people. That's good. How do you handle that situation? How do you deal with it? Where are you going to grow as a human off of that? My mother was always giving. My father was always. My father always taught me a very skewed idea of religion. We moved from Brooklyn to Long Island, New York the first day we bought our first house. We used to live in an apartment building, 2662 West 2nd Street. Six story apart, apartment buildings. Beach Haven Apartments on Ocean Avenue, Avenue X in Brooklyn. They were owned by Fred Trump, Donald Trump's father. Yeah, and my father was always late on the rent, always had problems with money. Fred would come, take the rent, give my father leeway. Okay, we move to Long island. Freestanding house, 60 by 100. Fucking amazing. Day one, we're there. Father goes to work. Me, my mother and my brother go to Dairy Barn to get milk and iced tea. It's a freestanding place where you'd buy milk, iced teas, and just quick things come back. The word is written in crab apples on my driveway. Whoa. My mother immediately, like starts crying. I go, what does that even mean? I don't know the word. She's like, don't worry about it. We go to the front door and there's an umbrella hanging like it's hooked into the gutter. And she can't open the door. She opens the door and crab apples and rocks fall down and break the milk and the iced tea. Now me and my brother are scared. We're like looking around. All these kids are in the, in the bushes on this House across the street, hiding. They thought it was hysterical. Father comes home, he, my father teach. My father says, stu, they hate you because you're a Jew. Jews are better than people. Jews are the chosen people by God, and that's why people hate you. I mean, obviously, that's not fucking true. We're not chosen. We're not better than anyone else. And from Brooklyn, where there was all Jews, 99% Jews, Long island, there's no fucking Jews. You know, they're calling me a. Which is a word for a dirty Jew Christ killer. He, you know, never felt that before. So it was very, very, very emotional.

Interviewer (86:56)

How old were you?

Stu Finer (86:58)

Fourth grade. Fourth grade. And so I became a people pleaser because I had no friends. I was a Jew. They didn't like me. I was short and fat. I was not a great athlete. I had to teach myself to be a great athlete, just to have friends. So I had to become funny. I was able to talk and I was glib. And then I became funny. So people like me can make people laugh. And then I had a big set of balls because I didn't want to show fear. Meanwhile, I was so fearful and so insecure. But you'd never tell, because I learned.

Interviewer (87:39)

That from your mom.

Stu Finer (87:40)

Right?

Interviewer (87:40)

Never show it.

Stu Finer (87:40)

You know, don't show anything. So I had a. You know, so that's how. That's how I grew up. So it was a very interesting dynamic of my father, who was totally confident on every level, would do anything, even though it was not successful. Then you had your mother saying, you know, don't make any waves. Just. Just love everyone and give away and everything. So it was like.

Interviewer (88:03)

And she would cover for him too, 100%.

Stu Finer (88:05)

Like, when we were in our teens, my brother, who was a year younger than me, finally, when my father hit my mother once, he. He knocked my father out. He grabbed him and beat the fucking shit out of him. And I was, like, mortified. Cops came. My mother would not press charges against my father. Whoa. So what? So when I went to therapy, they're like, your mother did you a very disservice. Your father should have gone to jail. Your father should have been locked up. It's. Anybody in any relationship, man, woman, can't be physical. That is. That is. That is a felony. Your mother. And it happened like four times with my father hit my mother. Cops came, father would leave the house. My mother would not press charges.

Interviewer (88:51)

Whoa. I mean, that's such a. Crazy to witness that and have it be normalized your whole life. That's just Normal, literally. That's very, very difficult to then have the proper perspective on the world in general.

Stu Finer (89:07)

I think that that's why I shifted into entertainment because it's like a, it's like it's fake, know what I mean? It gives the perception of, of reality, but it's fake, you know, to live in that world.

Interviewer (89:17)

So drying the tears when someone comes over.

Stu Finer (89:19)

100%, 100%. So that's, you know. So in other words, the dynamic of the, of my parents, you know, growing up was very, very difficult. And then the abuse I took being a Jew was very, very difficult. That's why summer of, by summer of sixth grade, I was the best athlete on Long Island. It was Jim Brown, Jesse Owens and Stu fucking like I was playing against 10 and I was fucking great at everything.

Interviewer (89:43)

How'd you make yourself a great athlete?

Stu Finer (89:45)

I just fucking. My father bought me weights, I hit the weights, I started running and I said, you know, if you're good looking and you're strong and you're fast and you're great at sports, people like you. People like you. And that's what I did. And then I really thought I was going to be a professional athlete. And then I've been the exact same size since March of seventh grade. Five, four and three quarters, six inch dick, never grew. I thought it was gonna be a porn star six inch dick. In like fifth grade we used to play spin the bottle and the girls used to show us their flat tits and I'd whip out my dick 2 inches bigger than everyone's dick. I'm like, this is amazing. And then all of a sudden everything, you know, I peaked in seventh grade, you know, I was it. So then I had to become funny and talk fast and then, you know, whatever, you know, I got in a lot of fights in seventh grade and you know, I punished a lot of people. But then like in eighth grade, they were much bigger than me. Then in ninth grade I had to kiss ass because I was getting my dick handed to me. You know, the fighting ended then. But so, you know, a lot of dynamics growing up, of course, you know, it's all, it's always very complicated. And then to go back to the, the first thing we talked about, like, like, I think that's why people are so fucked up in this country right now. Because the parents don't want to engage, they don't want to fight with their kids. They don't want that struggle and that turmoil every single day. They don't want to throw their kid out of the house. And say, fend for yourself. Because the consequences is, what if it doesn't work and your kid dies?

Interviewer (91:21)

Well, is the balance. Is it as simple as the balance is somewhere far right in the middle of, like, your dad and your mom, for example, because your mom was. Was way over here. Your dad was way over here. I mean, it was literally beating your mom and stuff, but your mom was, like, pretending it didn't happen, so she's a people pleaser. And then maybe like, trying to take care of you guys a lot on the side when your dad wasn't doing some of that stuff. And it's like, you know, you don't want to be the guy that's just like you to your kid all the time, but you also don't want to be the guy that's like, hey, you know what? It's okay. You can do whatever you want. Like, you kind of gotta mesh those two together and be supportive, but also be tough at the same time. Is it that simple?

Stu Finer (92:01)

Yes, but. And again, that's why I said from like 2 to 5 to 6 years old. It's when it has to start, right? Like, it has to start there so that when your father says no or your mother says no, it's no. It's not. It's not a debate.

Interviewer (92:16)

It's not maybe.

Stu Finer (92:17)

Yeah, it's not. It's not. You know, they set boundaries, and that's. That's a great thing to be disciplined. I am. Am still, to this day, undisciplined. I go over the top, always over the top, and I like being over the top. I'm comfortable with it right now. And I made a living off of it. And I'm a living legend off of it. Yeah, it worked out for me, but, you know, I'm like one of one. You know, that's not. The story is a lot of my friends that are the ups, their parents, different situations than my parents, but still train wrecks. They were around. They had girlfriends, they had, you know, boyfriends. They were cheating on their spouses. They weren't really parents. You know what I mean? They had kids, but, you know, like, hey, you know, you're in my way of doing what I got to do. They grew up fucked up, too. So I think there's a lot of adult children in this world that are 40, 50, 60, 70 years old. And then when they have kids, they perpetuate the mistakes again to their kids. So you're onto something there, you know? So I think discipline is very, very important. It's extremely important. If I had to do it all again, I would be, you know, much more disciplined, much tougher, much rigid. I told, like, like, it's. There's a difference. When you tell the story of what you should be doing, but then you don't follow through, you know, I'm saying, like, the kid cries, cries, cries. All right, I'm gonna give him an ice cream. Like, when, like, I became a compulsive overeater, I was fat most of my life because my mother would placate the horror show situation with food, right? You know, cheese omelets, you know, five eggs, six eggs, James omelet. When I'm fifth grade, it's nuts, you know, six pieces of bread, cookies, cakes, candies, you know, 10 chicken cutlets, you know, triple portions. You know, I had doubles. I had triples of every food, you know, became fat. And that's how I grew up. I learned how to numb myself with the food. Yeah, that was my first drug of choice. Still is, for that matter. Food. You know, I never have to really smoke pot the rest of my life, you know, never have to do coke, no drugs. You know, caffeine and food are really the rough ones for me still to this day.

Interviewer (94:41)

But food, I mean, that's so deep rooted. Because as a kid, that's what you viewed as, like, getting away from it.

Stu Finer (94:46)

Correct? It was. It was what I went to for comfort, you know, just to just, you know, get rid of the fear, get rid of the feelings, you know. That's why to this moment, to this day, the. My most happiness is taking friends out to dinner and hanging out. And even me and my wife alone, we go to Chicago Tuesday, Wednesday, we go to dinners, you know, crazy lunches, crazy, crazy dinners. For me, that's happiness, you know, over the table, eating food, you know what I'm saying? That's where I do my best work, where I feel the best about what I do. So, you know, that's why I love eating, you know, my. But my mother taught me that.

Interviewer (95:25)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (95:25)

You know, my mother was almost. It was like 280 pounds, my mother, you know.

Interviewer (95:29)

Oh, wow.

Stu Finer (95:29)

Yeah, she was a monster lady, you know, a monster.

Interviewer (95:32)

You know, she was like giant, a monster. That's. I don't know if I've ever heard someone call their mom a monster, unless she was like a killer or something. But.

Stu Finer (95:42)

Best chicken collets ever, though. You would die for a chicken collage. I'll bet you would get your hand cut off and sell the chicken.

Interviewer (95:49)

When did. When did you get into drugs and that Become a problem.

Stu Finer (95:57)

My friends had older brothers, so when we were in seventh grade, they were in ninth, tenth grade, they were already smoking Potter. They introduced us to music. Progressive rock and roll. I got introduced to really English music. Yes. Genesis Elp, you know, progressive rock and roll. And we'd smoke pot. We would steal the pot from my friend's older brothers. So that's how we started with pot. Started with pot then. And the greatest story ever. So I go to the bowling alley in 11th grade, March 9, 1978. Me and my friends are bowling and we're fucking stoned out of our minds. In 10th grade, this 12th grader took a liking to me and we used to go to Central park and meet this guy Mountain. And he would sell us an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. And it had on it blotter acid. And in a. In a. Like a. An eyedropper, he would. He would drop. He would drop a hundred circles on an eight and a half. Eight and a half by 11 piece paper.

Interviewer (97:17)

Oh my God.

Stu Finer (97:18)

Hundred circles of blotter acid. So I started. I was a 99 student up until 10th grade. 10th grade, I became 6. 10th grade, I went 6 because I was eating acid every day. Every, like a trip like 150 times. In 10th grade, I'd be in fucking. I'd be in biology, fucking with trails all over the place. But There were like six or seven people in there, so. So we used to pay $100 for the piece of paper. Then we'd come home and cut the circle in quarters and sell each piece of the circle for a dollar. So we'd break. So we'd spend 100, bring back 400. So I was making 300. So we go. So I'm really fucked up. My hair is down to here. Here. We're going to concerts every day, you know, every concert possible because it was dirt cheap back then. And go to the bowling alley, March 9, and my wife's there for the first time. I see her and she's bowling and I'm like, oh, my dick's fucking hard. Look at this. Go home. Must have fucking masturbated, like. But I didn't have the balls to ask her, you know, I thought she was out of my league, you know.

Interviewer (98:29)

You had never seen her before at that point?

Stu Finer (98:31)

No, I saw. I maybe have saw a couple of times, but never really like, you know, zoned in, you know, like, holy shit. So we go, March 11th. I'm at the train station with my buddy. We're going to meet Mountain. And all of a sudden, her and two other girls that I was much more friendly with show up at the train station, like, randomly. And then they're like, what are you doing? So we all go into the city. We go to Central park to meet Mountain. He's not there. So then we go to what's called a brew and burger. This was at the time $4.95. All the beer, all the wine, all the sangria that you could drink with a burger, a shrimp cocktail, a salad and a piece of cheesecake. So we got fucking annihilated at this place, you know, for $4.95. We got fucking wasted. Get on the train. And then I say that one of the girls, Eileen, I go, eileen, I really like Sandy. And she's like, you're so fucking slow. That's why she's here. She likes you. We got off the train, kissed.

Interviewer (99:45)

Oh, right there.

Stu Finer (99:46)

Got off train kissed. And we've gone out 47 years straight after it. So I. When I tell the story, she's humiliated. She's like, don't ever tell that story to our kids. Which, of course, I wrote it in the book. I, you know, I told everybody the fucking story. So. But. So I started eating a lot of acid. My brother.

Interviewer (100:04)

Every time you say that, I think you're gonna say I started eating a lot of ass every time.

Stu Finer (100:10)

My brother then started selling harder drugs, mescaline. Then he got involved with some fucking Colombian and he started selling them. Started selling coke, tons of coke, kilos of coke. I would never sell it because I was afraid to go to jail. Like, every night I would. If you get arrested, you're going to jail. There's no, you know, like, you're going, you're going away. And he didn't give a but. So. But then I started snorting a lot of coke because it was free. So 10th, 11th, 12th grade, complete disaster. Like, holy nightmare. Like, every night in school was never straight. Like, literally never straight in high school too.

Interviewer (101:00)

Like, you're so young. I mean, I was. I was a moron in college and after college, College. But like, when you're doing drugs like that, when you're 16, 17, 18 year olds, you don't even know where you are.

Stu Finer (101:11)

No. You know, but you know what it was? We had 3,3700 people in our school. 10th, 11th, 12th grade. There was no ninth when I was in school. Ninth was still junior. Everyone was doing, like 20% of the kids were doing drugs. So if your friends do it and your peers do it, you do it right, you know, that's really what it was. So I stopped doing coke probably first year of college.

Interviewer (101:42)

Oh, you retired early?

Stu Finer (101:43)

Yeah, and I just smoke pot and eat and then really I smoked the pot to eat, you know what I mean? It was like, you know, because I always was fat and you know, I tried to be thin, couldn't get thin, smoked a lot of pot and then I would eat. So then I had to like quit the pot to have a diet. So then I really, my druggie years, full blown drugs, was 10th, 11th, 12th. That was it. Well, you got it out of the way early, correct? Yeah, correct. And then I never was a drinker because it made me tired and it was calories. So I would rather eat a burger or fries than 10 beers, you know. So when we used to go out to bars, which I hated bars because there was so much smoke then, imagine going to a bar where you're allowed to smoke cigarettes. And it just like, it was like a smoke. It was like, you know, cancer infected, you know, now that we know what we know. But I would just sit at the bar and eat the pretzels and eat the popcorn and eat whatever they gave for free and just waiting until we got out of this bar to go to the diner, you know, so because I watched my friends get drunk and you lose, like, in other words, I. I know it's crazy to say because it's actually probably not true, but I could eat acid, I could snork coke, I could fucking smoke pot. I don't lose my mind. I Even on a different, A different valence. Yes. But you know, you give me seven beers, 10, you know, shots, I'm looking to your girl, like right in front of you, I'm tongue kissing your girl, my girl right here, like, like I lose all control. So I never wanted to be out of control. Like, for me, that was the worst thing in the world. So that's why I don't really drink, you know, I guess in. In my 30s, right before I struggled with money and everything crashed down on me, I started drinking Cristal champagne, Don Carignon champagne. Almost like a status symbol. But, you know, you could drink champagne to your fucking blue in the face. You're not. It's not the same as doing like, you know, 10 shots and 10 beers where you don't even know what the fuck's going on. You know what I'm saying? And it bothered me also that my wife at the time is my girlfriend, was always fucking 10. She wore heels, tightest pants possible Dressed to the nines, perfect makeup up. And every guy, even in front of me would try to hit on her. Like here with this piece of. You would dislike tiny guy, you know. And like they would hit on me in front of us, but they'd be drunk. These would be some of my best friends. They'd be hitting on my girl. So, you know, like, it's almost like the song. You're in love with your love with a beautiful woman, you know, Trust nobody. Watch your friends, watch their eyes, you know. So in other words, I didn't like to drink, thank God. Because I'd be probably dead. Dead. There's no two ways.

Interviewer (104:44)

Yeah, I don't think that would have been good for you.

Stu Finer (104:46)

No, I would have been dead.

Interviewer (104:47)

You do things a thousand miles, right?

Stu Finer (104:48)

Exactly, exactly. All gas, no brakes.

Interviewer (104:51)

Yeah, but you have an incredible self awareness about it too. Like when you were going through all the different things that you could be predisposed to, you're talking about like, you know, the seven deadly sins and, and all that. Like you understand that about yourself and it seems like you've understood that about yourself for decades, right?

Stu Finer (105:06)

Since day one. Right?

Interviewer (105:07)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (105:07)

I always had a good feeling, you know, because in other words, I was always scared of my father, hit my mother, you know, all the neighbors heard, you know, people heard, you know, then, you know, kids, you know, fathers crack their kids in front of people, you know. Right. You know, on the ball field anyway, you know, they, you were able to grab your kid by the hair and pull them into the house, you know. You know, and people were physical with their wives too. They would be like, you know, they would be abusive. You know, men were like the up if the wife got out of control or they would grab, you know, it was like a, you know, there was a lot of that and it just made me so uncomfortable. It was like so like crazy type things.

Interviewer (105:47)

And you never wanted to do that later yourself?

Stu Finer (105:49)

Correct.

Interviewer (105:50)

That's interesting. You looked at it, you knew it was wrong when it was happening in your own home.

Stu Finer (105:54)

And the cops came to my house, you know, like with my mother, you know, like calling them, and then all of a sudden backing down. So it was like a much different relationship or experience as a child than other people's, you know, I'm saying most, most of the time there were, there was a couple of really good relationships, meaning my pet, my friend's parents, but for the most part, everyone was miserable. My, my experience with marriage was a nightmare. I never wanted to get married, so why. It took me 10 years in a day to marry my wife. In reality, I was scared because I. Because my parents had such a horrible marriage and everyone else's parents were miserable. Like, and the fathers would tease in front of the children saying, you know, you know, berate their spouse. You know, the. The women never did because they never actually engaged with the kids. Then the fathers did. But it was always like a very condescending, negative experience about their relationship. You know, like, you know, like, almost like they were like slaves. Like, you know, they. The men. The man was the man and the women was just dynamic was to serve the man, you know. So I'm like, I was scared to get married. I literally was scared. I didn't think it was going to work. So, you know, that's why it took me so long.

Interviewer (107:21)

But you were very in love. Love.

Stu Finer (107:22)

Oh, I was. I wasn't from day one, you know, she owned me day one. You know, like, day one. No toys about it. You know, I imagine there were a.

Interviewer (107:31)

Lot of conversations between you and in those years about that very subject. And Sandy felt differently.

Stu Finer (107:37)

Yeah. Her mother was an alcoholic, so. And she died alcoholic, you know, so she had her own problems. She had her own problems with a mother. You know, like, she had to adjust and stay stuff and, you know, the way she adjusted, she became super smart. She was brilliant. Like, all my kids are super smart. Brilliant smart, you know, looks and brains from the mother. Thank God, you know, six inch penis for me, you know, pretty much what I brought to the table, you know, you know, have a good time with dad. And then, you know, mom's really where we go when we want to talk, you know, serious, you know.

Interviewer (108:14)

Right. But you also, like. So you had. You're watching the. The Eagles Raiders Super bowl in 1980 with your dad, and that's where you come up with the idea. Like, it. I'm. I'm gonna go for this and do this. Did you drop out of school to go do that immediately?

Stu Finer (108:29)

Yes.

Interviewer (108:29)

Okay.

Stu Finer (108:30)

Yes.

Interviewer (108:31)

Like, because again, this is all boring. Internet. How'd it go down?

Stu Finer (108:34)

Bought a list from Sports Illustrated, their base. And I got a telephone because in I with my experience selling unsold airtime for radio stations and maintenance scammels and office supplies, I was an amazing telephone salesman and I was a very hard worker. And I was not afraid of the word no. So I just dialed and dialed and dialed and pitched people on exactly what I said to you. Got a system? Father taught it to me. Home. Underdogs. Underdogs. Against the grain, against the public. And People were like, well, well, I don't want to bet that, you know, the bed. I'm like, that's what wins. Then in the early 80s, we worked from behind. Meaning I would say, julian, here's a game. Bet the game after it wins. Pay me. And I was able to get on a monster for years, not a day. I mean, I won for like seven, eight years with that system. So I kept getting paid, getting paid, getting paid. And basically I got a partner to work with me. He was 43, I was 21. And we had two desks that faced each other. And we rented 300 square feet of a little office with a bathroom on Long Island. On Long island in West Babylon. And we grind it out after one year. We had 30 employees work for us. We. We make. We wrote like 1.6 million in 1983.

Interviewer (110:09)

That's like 16 million today, right?

Stu Finer (110:12)

We were killing. We were killing. So we had a two story, freestanding building. So we were on the second floor, and it was like 3000 square feet on the second floor. On the first floor was like 1900 square feet of usable space because there was other. Like, that's where they had all their air conditioning and heating and stuff. So anyway, that. These little offices. So as we walk in the door, the minute you walk into your left is this little office and these two guys are there and they took a liking to me. They fucking loved me because they couldn't believe that. You're telling me, Stu, someone pays you for air? No, I'm saying no. I have a good. I have a good system. They're like, stupid. Shut the up. You know nothing. What are you. You're either bookmaking or you're robbing people. You know, that was their mentality. I'm like, no, no, no. This is actually real. We're not bookmaking. We don't take a bet. They bet with illegal bookmakers. They pay us up front. We give them a game after they paid, right?

Interviewer (111:17)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (111:19)

And what do you do, guys? So they set girls. They hired girls to work at strip clubs. And so you would have all these girls coming in and out of their office. Now, this is 1983. Girls that worked at strip clubs in 1983 were co. Cause they were fucking sixes, fives, fours. They were gross, disappointed, disgusting girls. Thin, disgusting. But to us, you know, you got a vagina. You know, when you're 23, you anything, you know, like, if it. If it breathed, we're it. So he would send the girls up to the office for us, and everyone would Everybody would them for free. And it was unbelievable.

Interviewer (112:06)

You wearing rubbers, I hope.

Stu Finer (112:08)

What?

Interviewer (112:09)

Come on.

Stu Finer (112:10)

What?

Interviewer (112:11)

Sounds like I. I feel the chlamydia from over here.

Stu Finer (112:14)

Listen, if you don't have an std, you're not trying. I don't know what world you're fucking living in, you know? If you don't have an std, you're not trying. So all of a sudden, one day, it's the craziest thing. And they weren't really. They didn't. Not like my partner. But when we made money, he became like he was a loser. Then all of a sudden, he got toupee, got his eyes fixed, ton of jewelry, and really had an attitude, walking around like, I'm better than you, and really was not a people person, you know, didn't give a fuck about anyone. You know, was everything that walked bought a Porsche. He fucking did it all. So they. They did it not like him, but they didn't like him. All of a sudden, out of the blue, one day, there's this guy in the office in a breathtaking fucking suit and looks like, you know, something out of Goodfellows. And he pulls me in the office. He goes. He goes, a kid. You're. You're still the Jew. You're the Jew. You're the Jew earner, right? You're a good earner. He goes, these guys tell me they really like you. He goes, any. If you have any problems ever, I'll take care of them. I'm like, who are you? He says his name, says he just got out of jail. He's there for 17 years for killing. Killing five people. Huh?

Interviewer (113:35)

Nice guy.

Stu Finer (113:36)

I'm like, oh, my God, this is banana land. But I adapted. I'm like, wow, this is great. If I ever have a problem. Because in the. In the 80s, certain times, you know, we'd lose games with people. They threaten us. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna kill you. You just lost me money. So, P. S. I told this guy certain times, like, don't worry about it. Anybody comes here, I'll. Don't worry. I got you. Okay. Okay, fine. And I knew a lot about the Mafia, because when I bet in the early 80s, they were with Mafia bookmakers, Carlo Gambino was in. That was the. That was the original person from the Godfather that. You know, the part they played in the Godfather, that was Carlo Gambino. He lived in Massapequa. He had a house on the water in Massachusetts. And Broadway was where all these local bars were, that there were Mafia bookmakers that you went in bed with. Okay, so I knew. I knew of the mafia. Never any bad experiences, anything like that. My father said he always knew people in the mafia in Brooklyn, but always stayed away. It wasn't his game. But, you know, he said, you know, listen, you just don't fuck with them. They'll fucking kill you. You know, don't ever turn them. Be respectful. But, you know, don't ever get involved. It's not your game. It's nothing you ever want to do. Don't go that way. It's like being a criminal. Don't go that way unless you want to go to jail, you know, you're going to pay the price, whatever. So the guy Joey, like two weeks he's there. He goes, listen, your fucking partner. I got a fucking problem with him. Disrespected me, tried to talk to him, and he just walked upstairs. He didn't want nothing to do with me. Me. He goes, I don't like him. Like, I don't know, what do you want me to do? Because you tell him he's better. Show me respect. Go upstairs, say, tony, you got a problem here? This guy downstairs really has a beef with you. I don't want to get involved and I don't want to with this guy. This is not the guy we're with. You realize that? It's like him, He's a murderer. He's a fucking grease ball guinea. Tony was Italian too. He's like, fuck him. And he never backed out, and he just ignored the guy. So this guy Joey has a Friday night card game where everyone played poker and cards. And we had like 30 people upstairs. Now, now a year into this, now we're writing like $5 million a year. Me and Tony were each making like a half a million dollars. I'm 23. It's almost all cash. Like, cash is coming to us. FedEx envelopes, cash, Western unions that were cashing craziness. And he says to some of the people that work for me, I'm gonna fucking smack this guy Tony right in the face. I'm gonna hit him with a gun and crack his fucking skull open if he doesn't fucking show me respect. I don't know what to do. I tell Tony, Tony doesn't give a fuck. P.S. i come into work Saturday, half hour late. The whole office, we. We had. We had like a private office. And then there was like a bullpen of. Of salesmen just on a phone with, you know, desk with phones. The whole office is trashed. And Tony's whole Fucking face is, like, bloodied and, like, bruised. Like, what the fuck happened? He's like, joey downstairs sends somebody up there to crack my face. Like, how do you know? He goes. He said. He said, listen, this is my territory. This is our game. You're nobody. You're not with anybody. And I own your business now. I want a piece of your business. I'm like. Like, oh, my God. I don't know what to do. And then the guy Joey says to me, listen, you tell your partner, you better show me fucking respect or I'm gonna fucking kill him. And he literally said, I'm gonna kill him. I'm like, I don't know what to do. So I go back, tell my father. My father gets my uncle who. Who worked for the FBI, but he took pictures. He was a photographer for the FBI. He says, get out of the business. He goes, it's. It's gambling. It's gambling related. I don't even actually understand how people are actually paying you, because then this is so far, and nobody this. And I'm 23 and I'm making a half a million dollars a year.

Interviewer (118:09)

You don't, like, even have competition.

Stu Finer (118:11)

It's just. Zero.

Interviewer (118:12)

Yeah. No, no.

Stu Finer (118:13)

Zero. Zero. And because get out of the business, you know they're going to take your business over or you're going to be in trouble. He just get it. You could do anything, Stu. Get out of business. I'm, like, not getting out of business. I'm making too much money, you know, Like, I'm greedy. So then meet with Tony. Tony says he reached out to a friend that he knows someone in the Mafia. Okay. So Tony and this guy drive to Brooklyn with two other guys to meet this guy Marco. Marco was one of the biggest bookmakers in Brooklyn. He had, like, an underground house. He had 20 TVs. And the old school. The old school layout of what you think a bookmaker looks like. We have 40 people on phones, taking bets, TVs everywhere aboard, everywhere they meet. This guy Marco, says he knows the guy that hit him. That guy's going to kill you. That guy's going to take your business over and just going to get rid of you whether you do the right thing or not. At this point, it's out of control. I'll take care of that, okay? On the way back from Brooklyn to the office, two guys in the back asked my partner, where do you live? What's your address? And my partner thought that was a little weird. She gives him a phony address. Okay? Three days later, again, same Thing Saturday, I get into work late, my partner is doubly fucking beat up. I'm like, like, what the fuck happened? Place is trashed. My office again. He goes, he goes, my, my friend double dealed me. I go, what does that even mean? He goes, they asked me my address on the way back and I gave him a phony address. These jerk offs, after they cracked me around, kicked me in the balls, I was on the floor, they were stepping on my face, said, and we know where you live. And they gave the fake address. They said, said, and we're gonna come there and kill you unless you give us your business. So now I got the mafia people downstairs made a move. I got this, my part is jerk off. Friends have just double dealed us, made a move. My father comes to the office, he's the greatest. He has like 10 shotguns, ton of ammunition. Dad did, gives everybody a shotgun, shows us how to shoot, loads it up.

Interviewer (120:39)

He's going to shoot the mafia.

Stu Finer (120:41)

Well, protect ourselves. Not, not shoot them, but protection, you know what I'm saying? Like to protect. Because what are we gonna do? Like if they come in to beat us, at least we could shoot them. So, which I told my father is no shot in life. I can do that. But all the other salesmen around, they're making three, 4,000, 5,000 a week. They'll shoot anybody for that type of money. You know, these kids, you know, they have no prayer of heaven making this money rest of their lives in a way week. They're making what they're not going to make in a year. So he gets plexiglass, bulletproof glass for all the windows in our office. Because now we have 3,000 square feet, we have the whole top floor. He gets starters for our cars from the top floor. We start our car so it wouldn't blow up because you know in the movies it showed how mafia does that. Right? Right. And it wasn't far from the truth. You know, we hire a security firm, they build a door where now when you walk up the steps, you would just walk up the steps and go right into our office. Now there's a door there, a metal door with a peephole, got a buzz in. They build a wall. We get a security guy to sit at the door with a gun. Then anywhere we went, we hired two guys with guns, open carriage to walk around with us. We slept at the office for two weeks. Me and my partner slept there like, like we went to the mattresses. Almost like you put a, you know, little like old school.

Interviewer (122:15)

Yeah, yeah.

Stu Finer (122:17)

After, like, 10 days, the guy at the door that buzzed everyone in said, this is banana land. This is great. You can't live like this. You can't afford this. You can't live like us because it was absurd amount of money a day, thousand a day, no matter what we're making. It wasn't whatever. And he says, I got someone that'll solve this problem. I'm like, okay. So he calls his buddy. It was like. It was his cousin's cousin who was a girl's husband. He comes up. He goes, yeah, because for 25,000, I'll. I'll stop this. We're like, 25,000. That's it. He goes, no, 25,000 a year for the rest of your life and 5,000 every Christmas. I'm like, okay, let's go.

Interviewer (123:04)

You know, like, Bo Dle, right?

Stu Finer (123:06)

Like, literally like that type of shit, right? My Bo Dle's son went to school with my third kid in Binghamton, by the way. I know Bo, and I know his son. They both went to Binghamton, and they're as crazy as the story. So I'll bet. So he is not the mafia guy. He brings like a captain up to the office.

Interviewer (123:30)

Oh, shit.

Stu Finer (123:31)

And he goes, listen, this is what we're gonna fucking do. He goes, you told me you used to sell concert tickets when you're in seventh grade, right? I fucking helped you. He goes, remember? You had a fucking problem with somebody tried to make a move on you with your. With your tickets. I'm like, no, what are you.

Interviewer (123:45)

You do now?

Stu Finer (123:46)

He's like, listen, you fucking Jew boy. Listen. Solved the problem for you. You've been with me. We're gonna go downstairs, tell this guy you're with me. You've been with me. He should have never, ever made a move on your partner, no matter what your partner did, because you're with me. And then I'll go to Brooklyn and straighten out the other guy, because we know that guy. So that guy's no problem. The only problem we have is the guy downstairs. I go, I don't want to go downstairs. No, no, no, we need you. So he goes, no, it's going to be very mellow. I'm not going to raise my voice. So I go downstairs with this guy and the guy that introduced me to the guy. They closed the door, and they immediately start threatening the guy. They go, who the are you? This Jewish Stu is with me since seventh grade. He's on fucking record with me. Check as the fuck out. Out. Who the are you? To make a move on me. You, who do you think you are now? His boss was like a. Was like a don. He was like a big family, you know, he had a family, like a big mafia family. And then the guy was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know. What. What do you mean? I didn't. How am I supposed to know? He didn't talk up. He didn't say, I love this guy. I hate his partner. Guy, let's shoot that. No, you're not gonna shoot the partner there with us, and that's it. And for the rest. And for the rest of my life, I never had a problem with him, the other guy, without him. And now I had a real guy behind me. So we saw anybody who threatened us, we threatened them back. We go, listen, who the fuck you think you're talking to? I'll send somebody, your house, I'll. Your wife, I'll blow up your house. I'll kill you. You know, my partner is the real deal, you know, like, so it gave me a license to just go, what?

Interviewer (125:34)

On people backed by the mob, you.

Stu Finer (125:36)

Know, and it was on record. It was really on record. If you checked me out on the street, they have, like a record of who's with who. So people. I was there. So that was like one of the fucking craziest.

Interviewer (125:50)

They're checking the phone books of Mafia.

Stu Finer (125:52)

One of the craziest situations ever. And then I remember going like, so I was the liaison. Every week I would have to go to this guy, give him 500, hundred a week, 500 a week, 500 a week. And then we'd have meetings with these other people. And they would always make maneuvers on me. They're like, how can we get more money? How can you go into business with us? How can we do this, this and that? And this guy who was. Was the buffer, loved me, respected me, saved my fucking ass because he kept them away from me. And we'd go to these Christmas parties. I went to like three. And it was crazy. I mean, it was like, I was so scared. He's like, yes, dude, this is. Meet Vinnie the Eye. Just got a jail for killing six people. He only has one eye because he got stabbed in the eye. And then he put seven bullets through the guy's head. You know, Larry the Fish, you know? And, you know, he would have, like, one arm and he would have gun. Like, he'd holster guns. I'd be like. It's like. He's like. He's called Larry the Fish because he kills people. He throws Them in the water, they're sleeping with the fishes. Like real. Yeah. So then this guy, the guy that wasn't connected but had the connections, came to work for us. And everyone said, that's gonna be the end of the business. He's gonna come work for you. He's gonna learn your business, he's gonna take it over.

Interviewer (127:16)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (127:16)

PS Reverse became one of my top guys, one of my fucking managers, and protected me my whole way. No shit.

Interviewer (127:26)

So he literally like worked in the business itself and then you just paid him a protection contract?

Stu Finer (127:32)

Yeah.

Interviewer (127:32)

You still pay him that today?

Stu Finer (127:33)

No, that went away after like seven years.

Interviewer (127:36)

Okay.

Stu Finer (127:36)

All right, so it wasn't brutal.

Interviewer (127:38)

That's not a bad deal.

Stu Finer (127:39)

No, it worked out. But. But again, everything I touch turns to gold then, you know, you just. That's not the story of 99.9 of how things work.

Interviewer (127:50)

Right.

Stu Finer (127:51)

Something happens. You got to make. You got to make, you know, you got to do favors for them that are, you know, hey, you know, whatever. And I did my share that I can't say what I did, but whatever. But never you can't say no.

Interviewer (128:04)

It's just you and me.

Stu Finer (128:06)

Yeah, exactly. No one's listening. Only a million followers. But, but again, that was in a, a once in a lifetime lottery ticket situation that could have gone so bad so quick, so fast. But it did. Also, when I be, When I, when I had 220 full and part time people working for me, I owned my own freestanding building and we were writing $16 million a year. It kept people away from me. Otherwise everyone would have been taking shots at me because it was still the scambling business, you know, and people even then didn't believe what I was doing. They thought I was a bookmaker, that I booked the people.

Interviewer (128:50)

Right. That's like using coverage. Yeah, exactly.

Stu Finer (128:55)

So that was, you know, that was one of the unique stories.

Interviewer (128:58)

Yeah. So you. But that's what I'm saying. Like you get into this at 19 and you got the best game in town for 18, 19 years or something like that.

Stu Finer (129:07)

Correct.

Interviewer (129:07)

You just printing money. You get married, you start having kids and everything.

Stu Finer (129:11)

1990, I, my partner Tony, although he had a big mouth and was really not good to people or people pleasers. He was great advertising. We were the first people on ESPN national TV show in 1984. We advertised on the NBA playoffs. 1984, we were in, we were in the HBO ESPN guide where they used to have a guide where whatever everything was on. And we were the inside front cover. Cover. So he Got my partner, Tony got us in there, got us on TV. Then in 1986, my partner thought it was okay to just hammer people's credit cards. So we had hundreds of customers with hundreds of credit cards. Yeah, he randomly started hitting the cards, taking the money and saying, stu, this is what we're going to do. Do. We're going to hit the people's cards and then we're going to use the money to advertise. By the time we have to. By the time the chargeback happens, we'll pay the charge back. Back with the money. But mate. But use the money as an advertising bankroll.

Interviewer (130:24)

This is like a Ponzi scheme.

Stu Finer (130:25)

100%. I'm like, how is that going to work? We're going to go to jail. P S. I went to the mafia guys. Not the mafia guy, but the guy that's working for me. And I said, this is crazy. So he made Tony leave and get his own place. We were still partners, but he got his own place. And he said to Tony, you can never do this. P.S.

Interviewer (130:53)

That'S crazy.

Stu Finer (130:53)

I have the better salesman. I have like 26 people. He has like 12 people. He's outrighting me every week, week three to one. How's he doing it? Banging credit cards. That's so. So then I. So then I said to the guy, you got to get rid of him. So we got rid of him. So we parted ways. No, no, no, no. Literally, just.

Interviewer (131:15)

I mean, you gotta be careful with your words here.

Stu Finer (131:17)

Severed the relationship.

Interviewer (131:18)

That's another severance.

Stu Finer (131:19)

A bad word to use, literally. Exactly. So they're not. And that's how we. That's. And then I just went on my own own. So then 1990, I opened my own TV show called the sports advisors. Hundred thousand dollar a week budget. We're in every sports channel in the country. Thursday night, Friday night after syndicated Thursday night, Friday night, nationwide. Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings. Fucking kill.

Interviewer (131:52)

Can we pull up a video of you on this so people can see this?

Stu Finer (131:55)

Can we type in.

Interviewer (131:56)

Go to YouTube right there, Danny, and type in Stu Finer, Sports advisors. Old school. Let's try that. I'd love to see this because honestly, at barstool, with what you guys are doing now, the whole like throwback where they do the like 90s facade with the jewelry and everything, it kills me. But that's really, that's really what it was.

Stu Finer (132:19)

Sports advisors 90s, because that's how eventually I went to. I went to barstool. Dave randomly called me out of the blue.

Interviewer (132:28)

That first one right there. All right, and let's crank some volume there, money, and then this. Danny's filling in on the board today. Everyone is killing it, okay?

Stu Finer (132:40)

I'm gonna rip his throat out. I will blow this man out. I will step on the stone until the man chokes. Let me tell you how. Winners, winners, winners, winners, winners. I'm on a roll. 13, 3. 13 3. My last 16 on games of my life on Saturday. Two team NFL. Paul. I thought so far to bag. I knocked him out. I knocked the man out last week. Listen, I will take my hand, knock him out. I will take my head, knock him out. You know what I did? I. I know. I'm like really mellow today. So what I did is I relaxed during the break. Two espressos. They were beautiful. Matter of fact, they were doubles. Two shots of Zambuca. I am feeling so rich. All right, folks, this is the bottom line. Now listen, you know how some of your friends tell you there's no such thing as a sure thing. There's no locks, there's no guaranteed winners. Forget those people. You know what they are? They are losers. There's a Biggie 6, 1 million star.

Interviewer (133:34)

Blockbuster roasters absolutely free.

Stu Finer (133:36)

Take it away. Okay. Thanks, Jim. Don't ever touch my hand again. Eat hearty. Eat like an animal. I know I will. Your source me likes.

Interviewer (133:48)

Oh, let's cut it right there.

Stu Finer (133:51)

Let me tell you something right now. Holy still. So we were getting like 3000 leads on a Saturday, 3000 leads on a Sunday. 1500 Thursday, 1500 Friday. We had a. We had an office where I had a group of 100 people on the phones going, stufiner, give me a name and number. Call you back. Click, stufiner, give me your name and number. We'd write the leads down, bring them up to the salesman, and we would just sell them.

Interviewer (134:17)

Would you walk around the office with.

Stu Finer (134:18)

A Louisville A Bat? Yeah. No. No. Like Robert De Niro. No, I didn't.

Interviewer (134:24)

You look like. You look like you were in that kind of vibe back then.

Stu Finer (134:27)

Exactly.

Interviewer (134:28)

I feel like you just got. Got. Put one over your shoulder, you look for it. Roll up some sleeves.

Stu Finer (134:32)

Well, at the time I was selling. I was a salesman. I. Because I felt to make sure that. To make sure that everyone worked hard, I worked hard. You know, these. We worked. We were working like 19 hour days because I would pay for everyone's breakfast. I would pay for everyone's lunch. Once we. Once the games started at night, I took everyone out to dinner. And this went on seven days a week. Seven days for like 15 years. And then if we did won the game, we would go right to Atlantic City. That closed at 4 in the morning. So we would leave it like 12:30, limos flying at like 110 miles an hour. We'd get there at 3:30, half hour, gamble, eat, get whores for the people. Come right back. 8:00 clock in the morning, we're back to work. That was pretty much the mo. That's what we did.

Interviewer (135:25)

How much of this when you went on tv, I mean, people can see you like you're the high energy guy, you always have been. How much of this was like an alter ego versus this is 100% the real stew.

Stu Finer (135:38)

100%.

Interviewer (135:38)

100% the real stew. Don't ever touch my hand again.

Stu Finer (135:41)

Right. Literally, I don't know how I did that, but that was like one of the greatest videos ever. People to this day just love it. People that stay in the street go, when they come up to them, they go, I just touched your hand, but you can tell me you don't ever touch your hand again. Like they fucking love it. So the show really blew up.

Interviewer (135:57)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (136:00)

I was probably going to be $100 million guy. Rupert Murdoch fucking murdered me. Scumbag. Fuck.

Interviewer (136:07)

Done that to a lot of people.

Stu Finer (136:09)

But a little different than other people. 1993, he bids on the NFL package to show on fucking Channel 5. P.S. he didn't have any sports programming, so he bought every sports channel. So in 1994, he threw me off all my networks.

Interviewer (136:33)

Why? What do you have against you?

Stu Finer (136:35)

Nothing to do with me.

Interviewer (136:36)

Oh, he doesn't like Jews?

Stu Finer (136:37)

No, nothing to do with. Nothing with you. Because now instead of my show had NFL programming, so he showed the NFL.

Interviewer (136:50)

But why?

Stu Finer (136:51)

So NFL was only on channel two and channel four, right? Now it's on channel five.

Interviewer (136:57)

Right, but why can't you all. Because.

Stu Finer (136:59)

Because in the 80s and 90s there was, you can't have sports gambling, anything to do.

Interviewer (137:06)

You can't even program it on the same channel.

Stu Finer (137:08)

Correct, Correct.

Interviewer (137:11)

Wow.

Stu Finer (137:12)

And my show went from a fucking 2, 3 million dollar a year earner to like grinding.

Interviewer (137:20)

And you don't have the Internet to go around and cut the table on YouTube.

Stu Finer (137:23)

No Internet, nothing. Nothing.

Interviewer (137:25)

But your business is still doing well, right?

Stu Finer (137:27)

Right. Because I bought the score phones, right? So then we would get thousands of calls a week from the score phone network.

Interviewer (137:34)

Right?

Stu Finer (137:35)

But then when the Internet hit in 98, it wiped out everything.

Interviewer (137:38)

All right, real quick, I just gotta go to the bathroom one more time. We're gonna talk about that.

Stu Finer (137:41)

Gotta go.

Interviewer (137:44)

All right, we're back. So you were saying you had mentioned this earlier and we left off right here. You did not see the Internet coming. You thought it was like going to be this like blow over fad.

Stu Finer (137:53)

Oh, why? No two ways about it. So let me, let, let's, let's go a little years before that happens. So Sports Illustrated runs a article about sports handicappers in their newspaper. Okay. And it was the front cover was Magic Johnson when he got AIDS. So it was, you know, 100 million seller, you know, like the biggest thing ever. What they did is people hated me, hated my industry, looked at me as a con man, carnival barker, deceive people, have no skill, can't win. So what they did is they paid me and they monitored me. P.S. they caught me over a two week period where I hit like 39%. So in the newspaper they got Meet Stu Finer, the biggest scam ever. He'll piss on your bookmaker's face. We got him at 39%. So that really hurt me as far as nobody would take my advertising money. So I had, I came up with an idea. Let me hire ex coaches to work for me.

Interviewer (139:19)

Ex coaches.

Stu Finer (139:20)

So I got, I got Bum Phillips, who is the head coach of the Houston Oilers, retired his son, Wade Phillips, at the time won a Super bowl with the Broncos. He was the defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills. So I paid bum Phillips like 125,000. Chuck Knox, head coach of Seattle Seahawks, legendary, pay him 125,000. Craig Morton, quarterback, the Broncos quarterback. The Giants got him to work for me and I put their faces up instead of Stu Finer's face because Sports Illustrated wrecked me. So now I'm going to put their faces up. Chuck Knox quits within three weeks because the NFL told him that if he works for me, he's never getting in the hall of Fame. Bum Phillips, they, they threatened him too. But Bum Phillips said, listen, my, my, my daughter is a big shot lawyer. Every ad you run that has anything to do with me, you send it to her, she's got to approve it. Craig Morton didn't give a flying fuck about the NFL. The NFL fucked him. They didn't give him proper insurance. They really then in those days ruined players. They didn't give a fuck about players. They, you know, they didn't treat them right. They didn't give them pensions. They none. So I have these fucking players saying, you know, they played the game, they know the game, they know the information. And so that information, blah, blah, blah, blah. Total bomb. No one gives A fuck, no one cares. I'm spending 30,000 a week in little one by one, one by two, three by three, strip ads and newspapers with their face. No one cares. No one gives a fuck about them. So I'm like, God, I got to maneuver here. I got to take a shot. So Bum Phillips, a Wade Phillips, becomes the fucking head coach of one of the teams I think was the Buffalo Bills.

Interviewer (141:20)

That sounds right.

Stu Finer (141:21)

Or he was the defensive coordinator for the Bills and then he got it upgraded. So I run a fucking full page ad in USA Today, which is a national newspaper saying Bum Phillips spoke to his son Wade. And we got the game plan for tonight. And the name of the company that I put them under was Inside Information Sports. I spend like $180,000.

Interviewer (141:48)

Oh my God.

Stu Finer (141:49)

Ads. And I'm figuring I'm gonna write like a million.

Interviewer (141:52)

Multiple felonies.

Stu Finer (141:54)

We write nothing. Zero. It was as if the newspaper. No one believed it or cared. Didn't work. Didn't work. Okay. I get a knock on the door like three months later, 5:30 in the morning.

Interviewer (142:13)

FBI?

Stu Finer (142:14)

No Stufiner. I'm in the stuff. I'm like in my under a year and they served me with papers like this big. They go, you've been served by the NFL. And you know what the processing service said to me? I'm sorry. That's when you know you're fucked. You're so like the word doesn't even. I'm like, oh my God, what do I do? So I get a hold of a fucking somebody who knew somebody who knows. I go to Manhattan, get a lawyer, 500 an hour. You're on the phone with the guy for 10 minutes, bills you for 10 minutes. He says, you're pretty fucked. He goes, you're really fucked because I'm dead. I didn't send the ad to Bomb's door water, first of all. And that's in the contract. So we call Bomb Bombs. Like, oh God, you got me in hot water right now. You really do. You know, there's nothing I could do. What do you would like me to do? You, you knew the rules. Whatever. Sweetest guy ever, best guy ever. And his daughter, although hated me for what I did. Sweet as hell too. We go to the NFL office and I literally. And the. The lawyer says, don't say anything. Let me just maneuver. Let's see what we're going to do. Do. And the minute I got in there, I just fucking dropped my drawer. Showed him I had a six inch stick. I go, listen, I'm in Fucking trouble here, guys. I made a bad move. Dead wrong. So sorry. We'll fucking do anything to rectify this. So then they get this whole contract together for me that they say, you can't ever use any players. You can't use any of our names. You can't use any of our logos. They made me spend a quarter of a million dollars on retractions. Every ad I ran, the exact size had to go in every newspaper saying, inside information. Sports had no knowledge of anything. It was totally wrong, totally fraudulent, and it was like a $400,000 bad move for me. It was death, death, death. So that was in 1997. Then 1997, also the. The show called Real Sports.

Interviewer (144:39)

Oh.

Stu Finer (144:39)

On HBO with Brian Grumble and Jim Lampley. They go on the same way Sports Illustrated went after me. They go after me, they send reporters right to my fucking office. They're camped outside with cameras. They want to do an interview with me because one of the customers that ratted us out to them, this customer paid us like $300,000. And the customer said that we lost for him on purpose, that we had the ability to win and lose anytime we wanted. Guy paid us $30,000 and we made him 200. We took the whole 200, we made him. Then the guy had no money, so we took a loan against his house, reloaded back for 200, and we went bad. We lost it all. The guy thought that we lost it on purpose, that we were in cahoots with the offshore sportsbook that he put the money in. Totally wrong. We just lost. We got hot for him at the beginning, we lost at the end. So Jim Lampley comes to my fucking office and I said, I'm not going to talk to you because I spoke to the lawyers. They said, don't say word. They said, well, if you don't say a word, we need you to say no comment with a microphone in your face. I said, I'm not doing that either. They said, stu, we did some research on you. You're coaching football at 2 o'. Clock. You're the head fucking coach of Farming, the Hawks. You're the president of Hawks. We're going to go down to the fucking field and embarrass you in front of everyone unless you say no comment. So they have me on fucking film at my office, walking out of my fucking office. Jim lovely. Puts a fucking mic in my fucking face and I go, no comment. I get the car a try.

Interviewer (146:23)

You like, checking back. Was that good, right?

Stu Finer (146:25)

So that fucking destroys me. That destroys me. But I have my score phones still working perfectly.

Interviewer (146:33)

Six minutes, first minutes you five minutes of scores.

Stu Finer (146:37)

Choose sports books, sportsbook.com and sports.com that were out of the country. We had a schedule that we sent quarter of a million schedules out every two weeks. That was the rotation of how the games were listed in Nevada. Also the rotation about when you used to call your bookmaker and you would need the exact rotation because he would fire the numbers really quick. So you'd say, what are the lines? And he would go, okay, you got the rotation that you would say as a customer. Yes. And he would go, okay, Bill 7, Line 6, Jets 4, Giants 5, Clemson 11. You know, New England 4. And he would read them really fast. You would have to have an exact schedule.

Interviewer (147:25)

Right?

Stu Finer (147:25)

We had a schedule that we sent out a quarter of a million to bookmakers throughout the country. They gave them to their customers. Okay, Killen, great advert. We jammed them with advertising for us inside. We did great, great. And. When Jim Lampley and Brian Gumbel buried me, I didn't miss a beat, to be honest with you. Besides giving the money away, score phones, sportsbook.com and sports.com they're paying me a million dollars. So instead of my advertisement being at the front, they took that and they were paying me a million dollars to advertise their sportsbook. It would be sportsbook.com right now. 50% bonus sign up right now. Throughout the country. 800 win cash. I had an 800 number. I said win cash. I gave it to them. Kill it now. Now I don't need anything. I don't even need the sports service. The school phones are locked in this one minute ads giving me a million dollars free and clear. Plus I still have all the other ads I'm running at the back end now. So I'm like, this is amazing. 1998 happens. See, the Internet flourishes and it went from like a zero to a million overnight.

Interviewer (148:48)

And you thought it was bullshit, Correct?

Stu Finer (148:50)

If you would not. If you did not have an Internet presence, you were dead overnight. Whatever business you were doing, you were dead. Because the competition that were flourishing on the Internet that spent money in 92, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 now they reaped their rewards, right? I was holding my dick. I'm like, I didn't think it was going to work. Wasn't ready. So the score funds go from 48 million calls to 300,000 in six months. I'm antiquated. CBS Sportsline opens this multimillion dollar, multifaceted, insane website, gave you scores Odds, lines, injury, weather reports, articles on every game daily. You could go to it, and they gave you insane information. Really put my score phone out of business. So now I'm as dead as dead. So fucking dead.

Interviewer (149:41)

Had you put any money away from all these years or were you just spending zero? Yeah, you seem like a spender.

Stu Finer (149:47)

Zero. I made a dollar, I spent a dollar, 50, and I borrowed a dollar from you. And I had the mafia connections. Yeah. So, like, I didn't think. And. And my outward Persona was that I went to every Super Bowl. I went to every baseball, football, basketball concert in the world. First row, 20 people spending like 3 million a year on nonsense. But everyone's like, stu Finer. Stu Finest do Finer. Okay, Puts me at. I'm totally out of business right now. 99, 2000. Can't pay my mortgage. My mortgage was 17,400amonth. Don't pay the mortgage for four years. Whoa. Cut a deal, got back, made one payment. All my salesmen left me to go to another company that was paying quadruple my commission, go bad again, foreclosure another three years. So for seven years, I didn't pay my mortgage. 17,400amonth. P.S. at the end of everything, I. What happened was I started learning the Internet. I had no choice. 2008, 2009, 2010. Then I figured out what I have to do is give free games. Go back to 1982, give free games. 2011, 12, 13, 14. On fire. Every championship game, give a free win. 60%, 62%. Win, win, win. Every sport win. Now I'm back. Now I'm making like 3, 400,000 a year, 500,000 a year. Just me and my son cut a deal with the mortgage company. They took 840,000 that I was in the rear, put it on top of my 600,000 original mortgage. Million four, cut a deal. Seventeen for a month. P.S. i made my last payment. May. Yeah.

Interviewer (151:59)

Congratulations.

Stu Finer (152:00)

So the fucking house.

Interviewer (152:01)

You're out.

Stu Finer (152:01)

Took me that long to fucking battle back. Then randomly out of the blue, blue barstool starts getting very big and big cat and pft. Shout out, shout out, pft. Shout out. Hank. They're running this skit that they have a fish tank and they have a fish called Larry the Goldfish. And they have two Coke cans. And whoever's playing that day, they wrap like jets around this can, giants around this can. They put in front of fish tank. And Rhea Maria Rhea puts fish food. So wherever the fish swims to, that's the pick. They entered this jerk off Fish in a contest. The Hilton Handicapping Contest. The biggest contest in the world. 10,000 of the best handicappers enter. You have to go to Nevada. Enter, pay money. And every week, somebody in Nevada has to put the picks in for. For you. The fucking fish hit 63%. Unbelievable. So all these barstool people are watching this on YouTube, watching this on Internet, betting their dick off making gazillion dollars. So it's like the greatest thing ever. So Dave says to Big Cat and pft, go pull up Stu Finer. Go pull up his back picks, back ads. And he's the greatest ever. Yeah. So Big Cat and PFT imitate me. Big Cat's like, I'm Stupina. I'm Stupina. Call me now. I'll kill your book maker. 800-676-7726. And then. And then PFT is like, I'm on fire. The place is burning down, but I'm gonna kill your bookmaker. 800-676-7726. So all of a sudden, out of the blue, it's me and my son in my house now, working in my kid's old toy room. All of a sudden, the phones blow up. I write, like, $9,000 out of the blue. I don't know who Big Cat is. I never heard of pft. I have no idea who barstool is. I never fucking heard of. They bought. No. Go to my kids. They're like, stu. They're like, dad, this is the greatest thing ever. They imitated you. Everyone's buzzing. You can't. They're the biggest company in the world. They're the funniest. They're this and that. You got to go to call them up on the phone. First of all, they were so happy that I didn't think they were because they were pissing on me, making fun of me, that I would have been mad. I'm like, I love.

Interviewer (154:41)

No, it's awesome. Yeah.

Stu Finer (154:42)

They call me. They call me into the office. Go to the office. And this is the wildest thing. So I'm downstairs in their office in this, like, vestibule, waiting to go in the elevator, go upstairs. This fucking guy comes out of the elevator with a hood on, Like, a hoodie, thin guy. And he comes over, and he comes over to me, goes, heist do. I'm your biggest fan. Oh, no. High Stu. I'm a big fan. I'm like, thank you. He leaves. The people that I was with ago. Don't you know who that was? That was Dave Portnoy. I go, no, I Didn't know that was Dave Portnoy. We go upstairs, and Big Cat and PFT and Hank have this skit where they want me to attack Larry the goldfish to tackle the fish tank. So you have Big Cat and PFT and Rhea doing their skit, and I run in to try to tackle the fish tank going, I'm the best. Not you, Larry. I don't give a fuck. You won the contest. That's my business. Fuck you. And I try to tackle the fish tank, Big Cat, pft, Tackle me. It goes viral. Everyone at the office fucking loves it. Dave gives them the okay. The next week, Hank comes up with an idea. Donald Trump will not pick the college basketball bracket that Barack Obama picked for eight years because he hates blacks. He hates Barack Obama. He fucking hates them. He's doing nothing Barack ever did, so he won't do it. So they dress me up as Donald Trump.

Interviewer (156:17)

Oh, my God.

Stu Finer (156:18)

And that's on the Internet too. It's one of the greatest fucking things.

Interviewer (156:21)

We can't play because it's copyrighted, but, yeah. Why it's gonna be.

Stu Finer (156:25)

Oh, it's okay. Okay. So I put a Donald Trump wig on the suit with the red thing.

Interviewer (156:32)

Did you do the voice?

Stu Finer (156:34)

No, no. I did my voice. And I go crazy and pick the bracket, and we go wild. Big Cat, pft, Ria. Go. It goes. So then, like three weeks later, Dave goes, listen, I got a great idea. Me, my uncle, and my father used to watch your show in the 90s. We fucking loved it. It was one of the things that really gave me an idea that I wanted to be a performer. Gambling and exactly what you do. I would like to rebrand. I would like to rebrand your show. Barstool Sports Advisors. Bring it back. It'll be you, me, and big cat.

Interviewer (157:13)

Genius.

Stu Finer (157:14)

P.S.

Interviewer (157:15)

Genius.

Stu Finer (157:15)

Here we are today.

Interviewer (157:17)

It's the most genius thing ever.

Stu Finer (157:19)

Wild. Yeah, it was so wild. Like, Dave said, what do you need? I'm like, I don't know. Can I get two commercials like I used to run on my show? He's like, yeah. He goes, I don't need anything. Then my kids were pissed because, like, dad, you could have hit him for a salary. You could have really banged him over the head. I go, listen again.

Interviewer (157:35)

Take them down.

Stu Finer (157:36)

Attitude, right? Attitude of gratitude. You know what I mean? Like, at the time, I was just coming out of my struggles. I had a good, solid base. I was very well received on the Internet, very well respected, because I wasn't selling anything. I was giving the games for free. And Then in reality they were asking me do you have more picks? So I had a very clean, pristine reputation now, you know, reinvented myself. And then the show came.

Interviewer (158:06)

Yeah.

Stu Finer (158:06)

And then, you know, been killing ever since. It's killing.

Interviewer (158:10)

It's amazing. And like the way the nostalgia of the 90s as well is something that.

Stu Finer (158:15)

That was Hank's idea. Exactly. He wanted us. He exactly. The show looks like it was from the night. Right. Literally.

Interviewer (158:22)

Oh, it's incred. It's incredible.

Stu Finer (158:23)

So now I have a problem similar what I told you before when we started a little bit. This is not my audience. 18 year olds to 30 year olds, not my audience. I'm thinking and I'm 57. I'm like the kids that work there are in their 20s, 30s, you know, 30 years old, you know, what do I do?

Interviewer (158:44)

Just a quick note. In the interest of trying to follow YouTube's community guidelines, there are going to be some bleeps in this next scene. If you would like the unfiltered scene. I will have that on other social media platforms. But it's still pretty wild. Here we go.

Stu Finer (159:02)

So I'm thinking how can I ingratiate myself in there? How can I embed myself? And I'm thinking sex, sex sells. Then I'm thinking as an 18, 19, 20 year old, what did I have problems? Well holding my load I would a girl girl, you know really only my wife and come quick and have to wait to get hard again. Then I'd come quick.

Interviewer (159:26)

I love how he's like really only.

Stu Finer (159:27)

My wife most of the time come quick. Well 99 of the time performatively I a thousand women I'm the greatest ever reality1 reality1 but it's not reality. We're living reality. I'll girl I'm Don Juan. So basically I CR I'm thinking how can I actually do something funny do something performative but actually put meat on the bone. So I create the perfect hour of sex. The 151515 30. 15 minutes. 15 minutes. 30 minutes. And if you can't hold your bring a vibrator and the vibrator I used which is in real life mouse head at the end, back and forth, ram that into the and then you the and the on these girlfriends side fiance's wives until they like it's Niagara Falls. Then also let's do do it and smoke, guzzle vodka, drink beers, do shots. Station loves you. The world loves you. I love you. Be great. Take no shit from the one you're never over. Match ready to roll R the Roll. Ready to roll. Bang. And I become a little legend. Every time I'm in Chicago with my wife. Every time I'm with my wife, girls got guys come up to me. We love you, Stu. 15, 15, 30 saved our relationship, saved our lives. We love it. And girls, like, nobody's ever eaten my before. My husband eats my. Now my boyfriend eats my. Because of you, I've never used a vibrator. We now use the vibrator with the cause of you. One of the greatest things I've ever invented.

Interviewer (161:30)

I was on the phone. I was on the phone, my dad. Yesterday we were talking about like who was coming in this weekend. And I'm like, stu Finer's coming in. And he was like, who is that? And then I reminded him who it was. He's like, oh yeah. Because he watched the video we played earlier. He watches that and he remembered your show from back in the day. But he's like, what are you gonna talk about? I'm like, it'll go anywhere. I'm sure we'll probably get into the 15, 15, 30. And then I had to explain to my dad, 15, 15, 30 was. That was. He almost swerved off the road. You know, we didn't go beyond that. That's where it would have gotten.

Stu Finer (162:04)

I'm doing like hundreds of thousands of a year in cameos. The cameo video and every cameo, I do the 15, 15, 30. Every cameo. Certain people go, stu, can you do me a favor and cut that 15, 15, 30 out? This was for a birthday party of an 18 year old. Teach them young.

Interviewer (162:31)

I was going to ask you what the secret is to a good 4 sub 40 year marriage in the middle of all this drama and stuff you went through. But I feel like we might have our answer.

Stu Finer (162:41)

And we were virgins and you were virgins. You know, first cuts the deepest. And again, I'm a 6, she's a 10. She'd never get rid of to me now. Have you seen what my wife looks like in 1980? Can we. How are we going to show this?

Interviewer (162:53)

I mean, I'll hold it up to the camera. Can we google her? Is she on there?

Stu Finer (162:57)

Oh, wait, no. Google my Twitter. Go Google my Facebook. Stuart Finer. And then you could blow up the picture of the profile picture.

Interviewer (163:08)

Okay, you have it over here on your phone too. While we're killing time, we'll let Danny do that.

Stu Finer (163:12)

Let me F E I N E.

Interviewer (163:16)

R E R. Yeah, we'll do Facebook. Yeah, yeah, Facebook.

Stu Finer (163:24)

Okay.

Interviewer (163:25)

Stu Finer. Click.

Stu Finer (163:26)

Yeah, that, that third one right there.

Interviewer (163:30)

There it is. All right, let's blow that up.

Stu Finer (163:32)

And the one. And the one right under it.

Interviewer (163:35)

All right, click the profile. Picture perfect. All right, leave that and then come over here. Dan, Danny, hit camera seven on DVE three. Boom. There we go. You weren't kidding. Still, you got a good looking wife.

Stu Finer (163:50)

And then that one's, that one's from Maui and that's Kauai, 1980.

Interviewer (163:55)

And you hung on to her all this time?

Stu Finer (163:57)

Yeah. Well, I mean, thank God. Thank God. For me?

Interviewer (164:00)

Yeah, you know, for you.

Stu Finer (164:03)

There was a line out the door for her. There was no line for me.

Interviewer (164:08)

Where'd you come up with the 15? 50? 30 was.

Stu Finer (164:10)

I swear to God, in a second it came to me. Hey, how do I relate? How does a 57 year old guy that is a total pervert.

Interviewer (164:24)

Obviously the system already. Obviously, yes.

Stu Finer (164:27)

No, no, twice about it. I, I just, I, but I never, I never put it in words and I'm like, like it just came, it just came to me. Like it was brilliant. It just came to me as the most funny thing ever. And I just banged it out. And they loved it. Like, you know, barstool, couldn't get enough of it. Their fans, like, you know, Dave Portnoy wasn't so thrilled, you know, he didn't bury it. He allowed me to say it and do it, you know, like I'm not actually Dave Portnoy's cup of tea. He's a big fan. He loves me, he respects me, but I'm a lot. You know what I mean? I may not, you know, I got. Three weeks ago, I destroyed him on our show. And he was pissed about it, you know, because there's nobody in the company that could say, hey, Dave Portnoy, suck my, you fucking scumbag. Because don't get fired. But he allows me to do it. So he doesn't really like, he loves me, but doesn't like me, you know what I mean? I'm a liar. Not but. But he allows me to do what I do because he understands what I do, you know, like I would die for that guy. I mean, I would shoot someone in the head. I would take a bullet for him. I would do a bit in jail. A lot of my friends want to kill someone to get in his good graces. So anytime he's. He would have a problem, I would solve the problem. Although he'd never asked me to do it because he knows I'm a lunatic. It would really happen, you know what I'm saying? But he's been very, very, very Good to me. Insane good, because no one really would touch me. None of the other networks, espn, Fox Sports, nothing would touch me because of a lot of my checkered past.

Interviewer (166:08)

He gave you this second act in life.

Stu Finer (166:11)

100%, effectively, 100% really cool, right? I mean, he made me. He literally made me my, my, my. You know, like, I have a me. I have a lot of meat on the boat. I could hold my own. I'm hysterical. Like, when he had busing with the boys work for him where he had Will Compton and Tell Juan. I was their number one podcast on their whole thing busting with the boys, the only one that beat me was Donald Trump. That was it.

Interviewer (166:36)

It's a high bar, right?

Stu Finer (166:37)

That was it. I was bigger than Joe. Joe Rogan was. I was bigger than bigger. I got more views. Wow. So people love my story, but what's.

Interviewer (166:47)

Really cool is that Dave makes himself from nothing. Started off handing out newspapers at the train station in Boston. Bet on himself. Worked so hard all these years, and a guy that he grew up admiring for something who was successful long before him now, then goes on hard times, reinvents yourself, gets your business back and everything. But then Dave also, like, explodes, and he comes back to you and is like, hey, I learned stuff from you. Can we do that here? Now? It's like the circle of life. You know what I mean?

Stu Finer (167:20)

I owe my life. Like, I was the voice for the Ryder Cup. Did you see that?

Interviewer (167:24)

I did not see this.

Stu Finer (167:26)

Really? Go. Go on my, Go on my Instagram.

Interviewer (167:32)

Yeah, go to Stu.

Stu Finer (167:33)

Like, there's so many doors that Dave Portnoy opened for me.

Interviewer (167:37)

Me.

Stu Finer (167:38)

There's so many things that Dave Port that people love me. Every, Every athlete to a. Actors, actresses, Athletes love me. They absolutely. Okay, so scroll down. Keep scrolling, keep scrolling. I'll tell you when to get to it. Keep going.

Interviewer (167:56)

All right, let's get some. Let's get some volume.

Stu Finer (167:58)

And again, this is because, I mean, this is course of the influence of Dave Portnoy of Barstool. You know, I credit I, I, I credit Dave Portnoy for 90% of my later success. 90%.

Interviewer (168:08)

Yep.

Stu Finer (168:09)

I beat John Ham. It was me and John Ham.

Interviewer (168:11)

You and John Ham.

Stu Finer (168:12)

And I got this over John Ham.

Interviewer (168:14)

All right, let's play it. Let's hit the volume down there. Embodied that still.

Stu Finer (168:20)

Was that amazing.

Interviewer (168:21)

Embodied that right there still.

Stu Finer (168:23)

And then they took care of me. They gave me, you know, they gave me hundreds of tickets for all my friends. They gave me and my wife elite seats, you know, hung out at the course, everything, it was unbelievable, you know, and I create. I credit Dave Portnoy for getting me to that elite level that you know, like in other words, in reality, worldwide, I'm probably a D minus minus personality. But because of Dave Portnoy, in certain circles I'm an A plus plus.

Interviewer (168:49)

That's awesome.

Stu Finer (168:50)

Yeah.

Interviewer (168:50)

So that in the middle, we skipped over this, in the middle of all this, like in between the years where you're doing, where you're all over the TV doing the commercials and then getting back to bar stool or there's a little movie made about you.

Stu Finer (169:03)

Yes.

Interviewer (169:03)

Where Al Pacino.

Stu Finer (169:04)

Yes.

Interviewer (169:05)

Plays you. This is the Matthew McConaughey is the other one.

Stu Finer (169:08)

How does this all go crazy story about. So this kid works for me from 1990 to 1995. The way I got him is I was advertising on an, on a score phone before I, before I advertised with the one I originally bought. And I gave the guy like 50 grand. The guy re upped me for a quarter of a million dollars. Supposed to give him the check. And the score phone announcer says, stu, they're scamming you. This guy, Mike Warren, total scam, total low life scumbag. He was trying to rob me. He's telling me they're getting hundreds of thousands of calls on the score phone. They're getting no one. This kid rats them out, tells me they fire the kid. They close their score phone. P.S. i think Mike Warren almost went to jail. I feel bad for the kid because he's out of a job. Fly him to New York, he ends up working for me from 1990 to 1995. He feeds my 900 numbers, had a great voice, great salesman, and, and certain times can get hot, okay? As it turns out, he was arguably maybe the worst handicapper that ever lived. Arguably hitting 20%. Not 40, not 50, 20. P.S. i say to him, listen, you're fucking killing my business. What we're going to do is we're going to have my brother in law pick the games, give them to you and you'll just feed the numbers with your voice and your salesman ability. He couldn't handle it. Quits, goes to, goes to Australia for two weeks, comes back and works at the Riviera Country Club. A caddy.

Interviewer (171:07)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stu Finer (171:08)

He caddies. Danny Gilroy, Renee Russo's husband, who's a screenwriter, and Dustin Hoffman. Danny gilroy hit a 50 foot putt because Brand Brandon advised him properly. Dustin hoffman gives him 20,000 on the spot, says we're going to do the movie, sits on Hoffman's desk. 98, 99, 2000. Hoffman says, I can't do it. Goes back to Rene Russo. Rene Russo shops it 2000. 1, 2, 3, 4, last house on the block. Jim Robinson of Morgan Creek production says, let's go everybody that was in the movie. Al Pacino played me. Rene Russo played Sandy. Matthew McConaughey played Brandon. Amanda Sante played a customer that in like fake land we robbed and all. And they used my TV show in the movie where I had to sign off on it. The sports advice is where you had al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey and Jeremy Piven in on my TV show in the movie. But so prior to that, so in 1998, we're right before my downfall. We're killing 16 million-808 million on live, meaning the salesman wrote it in 8 million on 900 numbers that this kid had a number that was doing like a million dollars. My 900-860-3210 was the biggest 900 number in the country that I was feeding myself. Did 3 million. I bumped it to a $50 line that did another million. Brandon did a million. And then all the other handicappers that were on my score phone did another like 3 million combined. So we had like, we did 8 million that year. So Brandon. So one of my salesmen comes down to the office, goes, stu, did you know? Did you know Dustin Hoffman's playing you in a movie? I go, get the back on the phone, I swear to God, my cousin's in Arizona and Renee Russo and Dustin Hoffman are fucking riding horses and they own a security firm and they're keeping paparazzi's away. And I swear to God, God, Dustin Hoffman said, I'm playing this Jewish guy, Stu Finer from New York. I go, I go, tell your cousin to get me the number. So they give me Danny Gilroy's number, Renee Rus's husband. I call him up on the phone, I go, listen, you low life scumbag, I'm gonna pull a bullet through your head and your wife in front of YouTube and come on our face. Who the fuck are you to make a movie about me and you don't fucking tell me. Okay, now just a little backstory. Before that, I was doing so well after Brandon left, I said, fuck it, let me get back to this fucking kid we're making. I'm making millions of dollars. I think I'm set for life. I'm about to be a hundred million dollar guy. Couldn't find the kid. Kid went like undercover. Couldn't find him. I Leave that message on Danny gilroy's fucking phone. 10 seconds later, my phone rings. Stowage. Brandon, what are you doing? Fucking threatening Danny Gilroy. You're going to ruin the whole deal. I go, what deal? PS Comes back to work for me and took him like six years to make to get the movie done. Right before the movie's release, this scumbag quits Brandon and says that he didn't work for me. He tried to separate himself from me as if it was all him. Now the movie's like 80% bullshit, 20% true. He never picked a game ever for the live service. He only picked for his unique 900 number. That was Michael Anthony. And I gave him the name Mike Anthony, the Million Dollar Man. Because there used to be a show in the 50s and 60s where this guy would randomly come to your door and give you a million dollar check. So I thought it was a great thing. He never picked for the 800 service to people upstairs that were on the floor. It was me and him hanging out. We used to play pool together. Bought him a Porsche game, license plates, 900 king. He ran everywhere with me. People hated him because they were jealous of him. But he never picked live. He wrote, he's in the movie. It looks like he did. He never did. And then it's not in the movie that he was the worst handicapper that ever lived that way. Exactly. Exactly. But that's the whole story with the movie.

Interviewer (175:43)

Oh, my God. So it's not like you were like the executive producer or anything you found out like, later.

Stu Finer (175:48)

No, no, nothing.

Interviewer (175:49)

This is like when you're going through it too.

Stu Finer (175:51)

Except I had to sign off to allow them to use my TV show, the sports advisors.

Interviewer (175:57)

Right.

Stu Finer (175:57)

And then once. Yeah, once the movie came out out. He tried to disassociate myself from him, you know, but then we buried him and, you know, he.

Interviewer (176:06)

You buried him.

Stu Finer (176:07)

Now he's. Yeah. As far as you know. He said, this guy's a low life, a scam. Like, he has a record of being a winner on Super Bowls. The person, this guy, Al Raleigh, that worked. That worked for me and him at the time because we had 900 numbers together. And this other guy, Steve Boudin Week became partner. Steve Booten fucked me. Raleigh fucked me. And they pass. Posted a record for him where they. Al Raleigh put that. He won 18 straight Super Bowls. Like, they pass. He didn't. He didn't even pick it. Right. He just picked it. So whatever. You see his record, it's just a total scam. He's a. And he's underground because he owes people money to this day.

Interviewer (176:41)

Oh, he does.

Stu Finer (176:42)

He will not show his face because somebody's going to grab him, maybe crack his face or, you know, make him pay the money. But he spoils broke. You know, he's like, he's underground.

Interviewer (176:50)

You're not underground.

Stu Finer (176:51)

No, no, no.

Interviewer (176:51)

You're above ground.

Stu Finer (176:52)

I'm fucking. Hey.

Interviewer (176:53)

All the world to say that's it. That's it. But that's like. So did you talk to Al Pacino at all?

Stu Finer (176:58)

Nothing.

Interviewer (176:59)

He never talked to you about playing a role?

Stu Finer (177:01)

And the funniest thing was this. Al Pacino met him once and hated him.

Interviewer (177:06)

And you did.

Stu Finer (177:07)

No. Al Pacino met Brandon. Brandon hated him. And Al Pacino made him not be allowed to be on the set of anything that was going on because he hated him. Hated him.

Interviewer (177:20)

And Al Pacino is known as like the nicest dude ever.

Stu Finer (177:23)

Hated him because he's a scumbag in reality. Wow. You know, well, it all works out. It all worked out. It all worked.

Interviewer (177:30)

You get to say Al Pacino played you.

Stu Finer (177:32)

Exactly.

Interviewer (177:32)

You signed off on it. You're a good sport.

Stu Finer (177:34)

Exactly.

Interviewer (177:35)

People know the truth now.

Stu Finer (177:36)

Exactly.

Interviewer (177:36)

You're out there bigger and better than ever.

Stu Finer (177:38)

Exactly.

Interviewer (177:39)

Everything that you invented in the 90s has been now reused and reinvented. And you're at the middle of it.

Stu Finer (177:44)

It's correct.

Interviewer (177:45)

It's the coolest. It's the coolest story. You seem happy as a clam, too.

Stu Finer (177:48)

And I hold, listen, I hold no ill will for Brandon, even though he's a low life scumbag piece of shit and he got what he was coming where he has to hide himself because he owes people money. You know, I got no ill will with Al Raleigh, who was who I made this guy was the fucking pay. Making 30,000 sucking dick on a corner. And I made money for him and this guy, Steve Boudin, who I made his father, I did business with his father made. His father was the one who got me sports.com and sportsbook.com. his father was great. His father died and then I went partners with the son, Steve. And the son is a fucking piece of shit. An entitled scumbag that fucking, you know, would fuck your mother, would fuck your daughter out of a dollar. You know what I'm saying? The worst. So. But I hope. But even though I say those things, I hold no ill will. Because, you know, anybody that you hate that lives in your heart. Heart lives in your soul, is like a cancer. You can never allow any Negativity to live rent free in your head. Matter of fact, the people that have harmed me that have done damage to be severe damage like crazy shit. I pray for that's good for you, I pray for because it works. Like how do you get rid of things that, that are killing you, that are bothering you, that just you're obsessed with you do you pray for them and you pray good things for them and you do writing assignments and then you. Writing assignments, you write all your feelings on a piece of paper about whatever subject is bothering you and then you burn it.

Interviewer (179:22)

Oh, I would pay to see that before you burn it.

Stu Finer (179:24)

And that, and that works so well because you have to do almost a daily flushing of your life. You know, there's people that have harmed you, it's people that you hate, there's people that certain times have rolled you for no reason. And you know, how do you get rid of that? You can either stuff it, you can ignore it, but most people can ignore it. It rolls.

Interviewer (179:46)

It's not human to ignore it.

Stu Finer (179:48)

Correct. So you pray for them on a daily basis and you do writing assignments and you burn it. You know, I was taught that through Overeaters Anonymous.

Interviewer (179:57)

Overeaters Anonymous.

Stu Finer (179:58)

I went from 2162 to 139 in over anonymous. Yeah, Same thing with Gamblers Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous where it's a 12 step program and it teaches you how to, you know, pray Right. For the people that, that have harmed you and do your writing assignments and reading assignments. Yeah, like in the movie. In the movie too. For the money. There's a scene where we go to Gamble's Anonymous. And this is true, this literally happened. I went to a gamble synonymous meeting and I got a sponsor because we were doing the sports of Oz's TV show in Merv Griffin's Resorts hotel. They'd fly us from Long island to there. But P.S. i'm there for two days. So what's the difference of a making 20, 30,000 a week on the show if I'm at the casino, right. Losing it, right. So I went to the meeting and I explained to the people, I said, listen, I'm a great handicapper, one of the biggest in the world. I'm doing a show in my Griffin's Resource. I'm here because I don't want to bet casino. Everybody stood up. They almost killed me. They're like, get the out of here. You're a scam. You're preying on us. You ruined us. I had to run out of the room and that's in the movie. That's true.

Interviewer (181:14)

I remember that.

Stu Finer (181:15)

That's true.

Interviewer (181:16)

That's a little bit of a conflict of interest.

Stu Finer (181:20)

Exactly.

Interviewer (181:21)

That's wild. But it's like you had said earlier, you, like, you find peace in praying. And you also said, like, meditating as well.

Stu Finer (181:29)

Yes.

Interviewer (181:29)

That helps you kind of center yourself a thousand percent. When did you start doing that?

Stu Finer (181:35)

1984. I went to. I went to as an outpatient patient. It's South Oaks Hospital. It's like a psychiatric ward. But they had inpatient people there for Ovaries Anonymous. They had people who were like 4 or 500 pounds that lost 300 pounds. I befriend a guy there that owned Screw magazine. So in the 80s, it was Playboy, Penthouse, and Screw Screw was like the sluttiest, disgusting things where girls were fucking dogs and. And fucking horses with cocks this big and eating, you know, just like, really slutty girls. And the quality of the girl was like a five rather than Playboy was a nine. Penthouse was a ten. The guy that owned it, Al Goldstein, Screw magazine, loved me. Fucking, you know, best friends. He gets out, he has a gazillion dollars. You know, I meet Ron Jeremy. I go to some of his fucking shoots that he has with these people watching the porn. And action.

Interviewer (182:41)

It was.

Stu Finer (182:42)

It was crazy. But, you know, off of Fatima, I mean, him. What a life. What a life.

Interviewer (182:49)

Okay. Yeah, you're. You're another one of those Forest Gump type people, right? Like, you're the Forest Gump of gambling.

Stu Finer (182:56)

If.

Interviewer (182:57)

If that's the thing. But, Stu, man, the stories, I mean, we'd be here, like, another six hours. Keep going. We're gonna have to do them another time.

Stu Finer (183:05)

You.

Interviewer (183:05)

You've lived a hell of a life, man. It's nice to see you, like, getting to enjoy it now.

Stu Finer (183:09)

And.

Interviewer (183:10)

And no pun intended, cash in on that and kind of bring back the culture that. That you built in a fun way at barstool. And I also really appreciated your thoughts on, like, gambling and. And, you know, I guess the positives of that when you're having fun because you can versus, like, the negatives of betting away your rent and doing when you're young and. And looking out for the kids and kids that maybe you think are doing that in. In your audience now because, you know, you have a little bit of a responsibility there as. As an older figure, too, to, like, understand, like, hey, you should get addicted to some of this stuff. So that's. That's important for that voice to be there as well. I appreciate that a lot.

Stu Finer (183:46)

And I appreciate the platform. Appreciate having me on. Means the world. Love you very much. I feel like we've hung out a whole life.

Interviewer (183:52)

I know. It's great. It's great. We're gonna have to talk again sometime.

Stu Finer (183:55)

Yes.

Interviewer (183:56)

People can get you on Twitter, on Instagram, Facebook. We'll link that all down below. Anything else you want us to link?

Stu Finer (184:01)

No, I mean, stu. Finder.com is where I sell my pigs.

Interviewer (184:05)

That as well.

Stu Finer (184:05)

And then be like, stew.com is where I advertise cameos and I have my merch.

Interviewer (184:11)

Got it.

Stu Finer (184:12)

And then, you know, the Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Interviewer (184:15)

Got it. All right, we'll put it all down there, sir.

Stu Finer (184:17)

Very cool.

Interviewer (184:18)

Thanks for being here.

Stu Finer (184:18)

Love you very much. All right.

Interviewer (184:19)

Love you.

Stu Finer (184:20)

Thanks for the opportunity.

Interviewer (184:21)

Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought, get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys, as always, for watching the video. If you have not already pleased, please hit that subscribe button and that, like, button on your way out, and I will see you guys for the next episode. Thank you, everybody.