Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

There’s another Neteller connection here. Doug Rigby, Steve’s buddy from the Fusion Media days, as well as Neteller, lives in Atenas, about twenty miles west of San José. Atenas was once described in National Geographic as having the most livable climate in the world. Of course, Doug likes to tell people this, says Travis. Doug still works in the industry, building web properties for businesses. Lately, Travis says, he’s been working on something similar to YouTube.

Hearing about Atenas and Doug reminds me of a conversation between Steve Glavine, Bob, and John about day-to-day existence. Around an outdoor table set for twelve, they talked about what it meant in practical terms to not be a slave to the daily grind.

Bob: “Do you ever not know what day it is?”

John: “I know when it’s Wednesday because I have shit to do.”

Bob: “Lesley and I have to get the kids to school.”

Steve: “Wednesday, it’s just a name. It’s so arbitrary. When I was sailing I forgot what month it was.”

I start to feel that way about staying here, outside Dominical, where the ocean seems to lull time to sleep. Around dinnertime, a strapping Maori named Whaka, pronounced like Walker but without the r , is hanging out on the patio, along with a couple of families with young children. Whaka hails from Christchurch, New Zealand, but lives in L.A. most of the time. He greets me and says his date got food poisoning from a Subway snack and so I’m now his date and he hopes that’s okay. Sure. Travis joins our table. Two big, beefy, laid back dudes. Whaka is not that laid-back, actually. His rasta cap signals an alternative lifestyle, but he’s got swagger and talks boldly, whereas Travis’s tranquility is the opposite of his linebacker appearance.

Whaka says he’s a yoga instructor, but not your usual ashtanga, vinyasa, hatha type. His specialty is flying yoga. He says it’s not entirely his idea but he’s put his own twist on it. “Really? I started going to yoga recently — only been three times. What’s the difference between regular yoga and flying yoga?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

“Here?”

“Sure.”

We get up and move to an open space in the restaurant, about ten feet away. A family at the table beside us looks on. Whaka lies down on the tiling and asks me to fall into him. “Two orders,” he says. “Remember to breathe, and remember to listen.” He tells me to let go of my neck. “Hang your head!” I’m having a tough time, and he knows it. I keep forgetting to spread my legs out and let them hang when not in the actual flying yoga position. I don’t open up my body. “Breathe!” he barks. I fall into him. He’s supporting me the whole time, whether I’m close to him or up high with his feet balancing my entire body with legs extended and looking up and arms stretched forward.

That’s flying yoga.

Whaka is a strong guy, but much of it has to do with coordination and balance, he says, as opposed to raw strength. “I’ve done this with some big guys. They can’t believe it.” Still, his strength has to help. The demo lasts about ten minutes. Everyone in the restaurant is staring at two grown men on the floor swooping close to each other and then one being pushed way up into the sky. It’s exhilarating when someone else is doing most of your plank work.

“You live in your head,” he assesses afterward, “but now you need to now live in your body too.” Maybe I should try meditating? “No — what you need is physical movement and physical contact. People need to be touched.”

I find out Whaka and Travis are heading into Dominical to the Envision music and arts festival, which has been going for two days already and will end Sunday — that is, tomorrow. Whaka is part of the deal. His flying yoga program is right in there with holistic hooping, belly dancing, and fire spinning. They went last night and had a blast. “Come with us,” Whaka says. “It’ll be good for your soul, a little rave dancing on the beach, maybe some LSD.”

“Wow.” I waver. “It’s been about forty years.”

Well, it might be good to get out of the head, like totally, and into the body, on the beach, with lots of people. Might change my mental direction. I know Whaka is right, but the ocean hasn’t quite lulled me to sleep, and tomorrow is my last full day in Costa Rica. I hang back, in the head, writing. The night passes uneventfully.

Should have done a half-tab — like John did after his fifty-ninth. Chicken.

The Last Suppers

On a day of infamy in the gaming world known as “Black Friday,” April 15, 2011, the DOJ announced it had arrested eleven executives from the three largest online gambling companies operating in the U.S. — PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker — on bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. The men who ran these companies were accused of going way beyond anything Neteller had practiced — actual, direct money laundering of gambling revenues through intermediary companies, and gaining access to smaller banks via kickbacks to move illegal gambling transactions. It was just like the chauffeur had called it back in February, about online flower shops and the hair-care stores. Of course, illegal online gambling in the U.S. was still going on — it just wasn’t out in the open as in the halcyon days. The only problem for guys like Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate of PokerStars, Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt Poker, and Scott Tom and Brent Beckley of Absolute Poker was that Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, and Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director of the New York Field Office of the FBI, knew about it, too. As with Lefebvre, they’d go before Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein.

On Wednesday, April 27, Lefebvre sounded worried, if not paranoid, on the phone. His lawyers had told him the DOJ wanted to “wrap up within the next six months.” One of them, Benjamin Gluck, believed the government simply wanted to clear case number 07-CR-597, now over four years old, off the books. Lefebvre wasn’t so sure — he thought the multiple Black Friday busts and his case kicking into gear were related: “There’s nothing to stop them from coming down hard on me.” Judge P. Kevin Castel, he figured, was going to hand him three years, not between thirteen and sixteen months as expected. Castel would make a trophy of him in front of the eleven newest arrestees. Look at what happened to Lefebvre. Better start talking, guys.

Lefebvre gave Gluck and Marella copies of his screed about the King and His subjects. They were impressed. Not only was it eloquent, they thought every word was true. They told him they were going to have the words engraved and mounted on a brass plaque and have the plaque hung in their Century City office. But that was where the words were going to stay — on the wall. Lefebvre was under no circumstances going to say them to Castel.

On Tuesday, May 10, Lefebvre left a voicemail: “It’s a date. September 28. New York City. Sentencing. So the last chapter is being written.”

On Sunday, July 31, Lefebvre phoned. His annual motorcycle trip with Jeff Proudfoot and Bruce Ramsay had gone off without incident. This time they toured around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Lefebvre happened to visit his first wife, Janice Pridham, who lives near Moncton. He said her house is falling apart and the paint has chipped off — and she didn’t care. No doubt he visited haunts he would only vaguely remember, if at all, from 1954–55, places like Chatham (now Miramichi), his dad’s last station. He told me his upcoming birthday party — for his sixtieth, August 6—would be a low-key affair, just friends and family. “The real party will be in September,” he said. Or whenever he got out of jail.