How Bookmaker Got Started

Updated: 15.08.2025

Bookmaker.eu is the only online gambling site in the U.S. that has a sportsbook policy of no personal limit collars, no matter how much a player wins. They date back to the early days of offshore sports betting, with a gambling operation in the United States run by Ronald Sacco, also known as Cigar. In many ways, Sacco is an underrated pioneer whose influence on Internet sports betting is hard to overstate. In fact, the man who is essentially the founder of Bovada, a major Bookmaker.eu competitor, read Sacco's story when he was starting out in the 1990s and it inspired him to get into the business.

Ron “The Cigar” Sacco

Ron Sacco was born in San Francisco in 1943 and attended Balboa High School. He was arrested for bookmaking for the first time as a teenager, and nearly a dozen times in all. At his peak, which lasted from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Sacco proved to be the nation's biggest bookie. He was a runner in his teens, handing out cash at bars and barbershops (including the one where his own father worked).

In 1971, Ronald Sacco and his associate Ronald Noto were arrested as part of a federal racketeering investigation. Their arrest stemmed from the snitching of one of their telephone operators who had turned state's witness. This was a big deal. It was the first time the federal government had singled out a couple of very localized bad guys, and they were doing it under an entirely new law. Neither Sacco nor Noto had any sort of organized operation. They were more or less just a couple of guys working at the street level, with a couple of other guys around them who were also working at the street level.

Once freed, Sacco went right back to running a bookmaking operation. This was not surprising; he had known nothing but the gambling world since his teenage years, and in that world he was a success. Sacco's bookmaking operation-that is, his illegal gambling operation-was larger than any other in the United States. (In fact, it was bigger than even his FBI informants had told them.) Sacco was bigger than the big boys, and he was able to stay out of prison by bribing judges and others who could easily have put him back behind bars. This was not Sacco's fault; he was just a brave, successful sports gambler. His problem did not come under the label of "gambling" or even "illegal gambling"; it came under the label of "being a stupid gambler.

In 1985, Ron Sacco thought he had found a loophole in the law. The Wire Act made it illegal to take bets from one state to another using any kind of wire (like a telephone or telegraph). But there was also a provision that said the law didn't apply to legal gambling establishments. Sacco and his associates decided that the Dominican Republic qualified as a legal jurisdiction, set up a betting operation there, and began taking telephone bets from all over the United States. In effect, they were promoting a business that was illegal in the 50 states but legal where they were located. They didn't think they were breaking the law. They thought they had found a legal way to give Americans what some Americans clearly wanted - to bet on sports.

What Ron Sacco was doing wrong was taking bets over the phone while still collecting and paying them in cash in the U.S. In June of 1987, Sacco's right-hand man, Tony Ballestrasse, and his girlfriend, Marisa Lankester, were arrested in L.A. A week later, Sacco's house was raided. He was arrested for the second time, tried and convicted of felony bookmaking. Ballestrasse was arrested in L.A. along with Sacco's wife. Sacco was making the same mistake his father had made: getting too close to the action while trying to be too much of a legitimate businessman.

Nevertheless, Sacco did not enter a plea: he was certain that his business was legitimate. After his conviction, he appealed, arguing that he was up to date on all taxes; that the records found by the police were indeed kept in compliance with federal income tax regulations and could not be construed as evidence against him; and that, in his view, all of this was simply a protective measure covered by his Fifth Amendment rights.

It was an interesting defense. The appellate court ruled that the documents were necessary for the day-to-day operation of the business and weren't just kept in a box with the tax receipts. The evidence held up and his conviction was upheld. So he had to serve his second 3-year sentence. Fortunately for him, he was granted early parole in 1989 after serving 53 weeks.

In September 1993, both Ron Sacco and his right-hand man, Tony Ballestrasse, were arrested again. This time it was in the Dominican Republic. While they were operating under a sports betting license, it only allowed them to take bets locally. Of course, there was an unstable government at the time and a lot of money was being paid in bribes. The authorities knew what Sacco was doing for years. It was pressure from the U.S. that led to the arrests.

Ron Sacco was deported as an undesirable alien and turned over to U.S. authorities. He was charged with running the largest bookmaking operation in the United States, processing over $1 billion (USD) in sports bets annually. This led to his third felony bookmaking conviction where he was sentenced to 68 months in prison. After serving over 3 years, he was released on parole in May 1998.

Costa Rica International Sports

Remember, Ron Sacco's betting operation was colossal: $1 billion a year in sports betting made him the largest bookie in the United States. There are many stories of him pushing millions of dollars in credit card processing through pawn shop fronts across the country. He also infiltrated several banks, kept a few cops and elected officials on the payroll, and even showed up (unfavorably) in a few chapters of the famous Pete Rose gambling scandal. You can bet that while Sacco was in prison, nothing remotely resembling his bookmaking operation went anywhere but San Francisco. When it came time to put Sacco behind bars, a few more dominoes fell and a few more characters fled to Costa Rica.

Orchestrated from a base of the Sacco operation built since his

Where the Line Originates

By the mid-1990s, Sacco's operation, now called CRIS, was quickly gaining new competitors. People with no background in sports betting flocked to countries like Belize, Antigua, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Costa Rica to set up toll-free telephone betting operations and get rich. Some of these new bookmakers were downright devious. BetMaker founder Scott Barrett, for example, got his education in the bookmaking business at the expense of his former employers. Not even Barrett's boss in Costa Rica, Ron Sacco, could say for sure how much money Barrett had stolen from the U.S. companies that hired him.

The crew running CRIS had to come up with a plan. The company decided: What if we could get the lines set before Las Vegas? After figuring out the logistics and coming up with a plan - which they tested and retested until it worked - they hired a group of handicappers to set the lines and tell them what the number should be. After getting feedback, they made a decision, opened the action, and adjusted the line as needed as the bets came in. But of course, Las Vegas Sports Consultants - who had been doing the job - didn't like the competition. So it turned into a competition with each side trying to get the lines out earlier and earlier. Eventually, CRIS started posting the lines for the next week while the 1pm games were still running.

For early lines, each bookmaker, including the sports books in Las Vegas, would wait on the phone with various representatives just to be the first to get the line posted. As soon as they got the line, they would place a bet or pass and then get the next line. CRIS became so well known for this that Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust sports book and was portrayed by Robert De Niro in the movie Casino, gave it a new slogan. During an interview he was asked what he thought was the best offshore book. He said, "BetCRIS, this is where the line comes from". And it stuck. It is still on their website, www.bookmaker.eu.

BetCRIS.com Goes Online *Bookmaker.eu*

In November 1998, Ron Sacco was granted parole. Not one to dally, he immediately set about erasing his past and re-entering the world of high-stakes gambling. He did this by obtaining a new passport. In America, living under the protection of law enforcement, he was Ronald Sacco; in Costa Rica, holding the reins of a renewed gambling empire, he was Ronald O'Malley. Compared to the immediate obstacle of the authorities in the United States, the gambler's life seemed riskier, but not terribly risky. Bookmakers were thriving - betting sites were the future.

Ron Sacco Arrested – AGAIN!

In March 2002, a man was apprehended in Peñas Blancas, Costa Rica, near the Nicaraguan border. He arrived with two passports - one issued to Ronald Sacco in the United States and the other to Ronald O'Malley in Belize. Both passports had the same photograph. Costa Rican authorities had notified the U.S. consulate of the arrest, and the consul told them that Sacco had been indicted in San Francisco in 2000 on bookmaking charges and was considered a fugitive. Days later, Costa Rican prosecutors convicted the man of identity theft. He was sentenced to 10 years in Costa Rica without the right to appeal and banned from the country for 10 years after his release. Costa Rican authorities then deported him to the United States on July 4, 2002.

This incident has really done a lot to vindicate the individual known as Ron "The Cigar" Sacco. Although he had been arrested several times before and was now facing felony charges for the fourth time, all this man was doing was running a legitimate bookmaking business. As far as the business was concerned, it could not have been better. Sacco paid all the winners, took the highest stakes and, as far as I know, had the respect of all his peers. When he first started, this could only have been considered a nice crime that didn't even amount to a speeding ticket.

Unlike all previous cases in which he had defended and fought the charges against him, Sacco finally accepted the truth. The court learned that he maintained the dual role of husband and father to a family living a precarious existence in Costa Rica. His wife and daughter were dependent on him, and Sacco had taken the necessary steps to ensure that they received the support he was obligated to provide. When he wasn't working as a federal informant, leading the FBI to terrorists and other dangerous types, Sacco was earning an honest living through legal means. He had been unfairly punished for a crime (sports betting) that was itself no more than a crime.

Mickey Richardson

After Ron Sacco's arrest in 2002, Mickey Richardson - the owner of Yabet.com, who serves as the company's president - was hired to run CRIS, which Sacco founded as a teenager in the early 1960s. After serving his time and winning his release, Sacco empowered Mickey Richardson to become the company's CEO. For over a decade now, Mickey (Richardson) has overseen the largest U.S. bookmaking operation that pays winners without a hitch.

Bookmaker.eu

In 2007, CRIS acquired a coveted domain for SEO and branding purposes: bookmaker.com. However, the company already had dozens of brick-and-mortar betting shops, clubs and casinos in legal Latin American markets under the name BetCRIS, in addition to betcris.com. They also had a contract to operate the betting monopoly for the government of Rwanda. Outside of the US, BetCRIS was a huge and completely legal corporate brand. To take advantage of the new domain, CRIS made the strategic decision to spin off and create a version under which it could operate in the US.

In 2011, numerous US-based gambling sites had their domains seized by the Department of Homeland Security. Bookmaker has since used several different domains, including bmaker.ag, before adopting the .eu trend. Their current site, www.bookmaker.eu, is one of, if not the safest site for US players. These guys accept the highest limits and probably handle as many $10,000 bets as most sites do $10 bets. The chance of ever getting cheated at bookmaker.eu is next to nothing.

Ron Sacco Today

Ron Sacco no longer works for BetCRIS/Bookmaker. After he was fired, he stayed on as a partner for a while. When the UIGEA was about to become law, he decided that he had had enough of working in an industry that was so frequently targeted by law enforcement and where he constantly had to worry about the legality of what he was doing. For a one-time sum far less than the value of the company he had built, Mickey Richardson bought him out.

The rest of the story concerns Ron Sacco, a legend in the US gaming industry. His honesty, integrity and work ethic are what made Gus' story worth telling. Everyone who works in the US gaming industry owes him and Gus a debt of gratitude. Sacco restored respect to an industry that had suffered as much as the mob last respected it (and, well, the mob last respected it when guys like Gus and Sacco were around to fix it and clean it up). Sacco's amended history (and Gus's, too) is a real inside look at what happened to the U.S. gambling industry and serves as an invaluable way to introduce readers to what's really, really going on today.