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November 27, 2024 37 mins
On this episode of Barguments, hosts Dan "Bass" Levy and Joe Kelly sit down with Owen Hanson, co-author of; "The California Kid". Owen shares his incredible journey from being a star athlete at USC to becoming an international kingpin, detailing his time working with the cartel, wild gambling tales involving Paris Hilton, and stories about Reggie Bush. Plus, the guys dive into a heated 'bargument'—if all the fictional mob bosses were in a room together, who would reign supreme? Tune in for a gripping mix of real-life stories and fun debates!

Once again, please continue to share the Barguments Podcast with neighbors and friends and subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are at it, please give us a 5-star rating and share your feelings about Bargumentst by leaving a review on whatever platform you listen to the show on.

Link to buy the book: https://www.thecaliforniakid.com/

Owen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialcakid?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Arguments is recorded in front of a live studio audience.
What's up, everybody, Yeah, welcome in to another exciting edition
of Barguments. Alongside Joe Kelly, I'm your host, Dan Levy.
Our guest today is the co author of The California
Kid from USC goundenboy to International drug Kingpin, which is

(00:21):
just coming out now. Please give a warm Bargument. Welcome
to Owen Hanson. Ohen, thanks so much for coming on
the show.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, thanks for having me tellas you have.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
One of the more interesting stories I've ever been pitched
in my entire life. You were a college athlete and
then your life took good turn in a different way.
The book is just coming out. It's a great read.
Do you want to give us and our listeners the story?
How did you go from star athlete to on the
wrong side of the law?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Man? That's a good question. You know, I started, I
started playing sports at University of Southern California, more of
an upscale, pristine college with a lot of money. And
you know, I came from this blue collar family. My
dad was a construction worker, my mother was a library
and so I got to this this campus and I
was like, man, how the hell am I supposed to

(01:15):
be able to hang out with these guys and afford
to live? You know, these guys have American Express, black cards,
roll ups, watches, driving Bentley's and Porsches, and I'm like
growing up in a Toyota Camry and I'm like, man,
there's no way I'm going to be able to survive. So,
you know, I would say I was ambitious, you know,
I just I started small. I reached out to some

(01:36):
high school friends that were in you know, Mexican gangs,
and I said, hey, what do you guys think do
you think you're can you know, help me? Supply me
some some of that white powder and I'll start selling
to the fraternity kids that all are paying one hundred
dollars a gram And they're like, yeah, yeah, we got you.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Hold on real quick, question before we had that way,
were you doing this stuff in high school too? Did
it start as a high school thing? You were? God
of dolling? Because I mean to have those kind of
hookups and friends and just kind of reach out to
those guys is kind of a story of its own,
if you will.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
No, Actually, I came from a real strict family. My
father was very strict. I had a curfew at xpm
every night, and you know, sports was my life. He
made sure I was home at six on the weekdays
and eight on the weekends. And I never was hanging
out with a bad crowd, more of the athletic crowd.

(02:28):
But I was like a chameleon. I knew everybody in
the high school.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
So wait, so you go to college and you find
out that everybody there. Go go to USC, which is
a very rich in southern California that is in the
heart of downtown. I had a cousin I went to USC,
so I know that campus really well. So you go
there and you find out that everybody there is just
way too rich. And the thought that comes to your hand,

(02:53):
and instead of getting a job or anything else, you go,
how do I become a king? Pit?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Where does your brain go from there?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
There? No, it doesn't even start from there. It just
starts like, how how am I going to make the
money while I'm playing sports to go out with these
these these kids in the fraternities, you know, in the
in the team sports. All these guys have money. So
I'm I'm unable to to survive without you know, a
job and you can't really you don't really have a

(03:21):
job when you're playing sports in your tennis class, you know,
now forty hours a week.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
So I reached out to some some of my Mexican friends.
I'm back home and Readoon the Beach and I asked them,
you know, I said, I've noticed a lot of these
kids from you know, you're doing that white powder. And
they're like, well, what do you want to do? I said,
I'm thinking these guys are paying one hundred dollars gram.
I said, is there any way you can get it
to me at like a wholesale cost? And they said, yeah,

(03:48):
we could make that happen. And I remember they showed
up with like eight ounces of cocaine. I was like,
what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?
And they told me how to weigh it out? And
you put a gram here, put it in the bag,
weigh it out. Next thing you know, I got a
sock tour full of these grand bags. And I tell
my my my attorney brother who's living in the dorm
with me, I said, hey, I'm going football practice. If

(04:11):
anybody wants these, we're doing a half off sale. They're
fifty bucks and We're going right at college was everyone
is paying a hundred bucks because all these kids have money.
And I came back from football practice and next thing,
you know, my roommates to dude, we're out. I said,
what do you mean we're out? We had eight ounces?
He goes, we're out and my sock tour was full
of one hundred dollar bills, twenty dollar bills. I was like,

(04:31):
holy shit, I think I'm onto something here.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Nobody's bringing this out this drunk things are really coming up.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
This is incredible. So the next day I called my
bexkin's friend from my hometown. I said, hey, stat's I'm
done with that eight ounces. And he's like, what would
you do it all? I said, no, I don't even
do this stuff. I said, but they bought it all.
But he came back and next thing, he dropped off
a pound of it, and I gave him the money
that I owed him for the eight ounces, and and

(05:00):
you started.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Snowballing literally literally literally unintended. Yeah, why you're doing this?
And while you're in the middle of all this, the
minute you have a sock drawer full of cocaine in
that drawer, is there anything going on through your mind.
That's like, I hope I don't get busted because it's

(05:21):
kind of like this pretty cavalier to be like, I'll
just tell my roommate it's fifty percent off and I'll
let me know what I come back from practice. Is
there anything in your mind that's like, maybe this is
not the best idea, or you just this is going
to happen and I can get away with it.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, you know, I knew it was risky, and at
the same time, I knew I had that little bubble.
I was in the fraternity house that was kind of
like this this bubble that no one's really coming in there.
It's not like the laws coming in there. It's protected
by the campus. So I had this this you know protection,
and at the end of the day, I was, you know,

(05:56):
not even handling it. To be honest, I was at
practice and made for every twenty gram sold, he'd get
one on the house and it made it really easy.
The concept was was there, and I was ambitious and
I was like okay, And after the first round, I
was like, man, i had like four thousand dollars in
my pocket and I'm finally able to go to traditions
and all these campus bars and hang out with the

(06:18):
guys and invite a girl for a drink and it
felt good.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Interesting. Okay, so you're going through this and your career.
At that point, were you saying to yourself, I may
not actually go further than college, I should kind of
go this way. At what point were you like, I'm
just going to go all in on.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
This, I would say, through the recession. I got a
job right out of college from the USC alum. I
started working for a real estate development company. When I
was killing it, I stopped, you know, I stopped all
the illegal activity. You know, once I graduated college, I said, okay,
that's that's enough. That was fun. You know, it had
its purpose. And I got to call. I got to

(06:58):
my first job out of out of college, and I
worked for this big real estate developer and I was
making great money. You know, I was baking sixty thousand
plus commission. You know, this is in two thousand and five,
right out of college. So I was like, oh, this
is this is cool. I like it ed. We're building
this nice, big, huge lifestyle center in Louisiana. Next thing,

(07:20):
you know, the recession hits it right around like two
thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, and I'm the
first one to get canned. And I'm like, man, what
am I going to do now? And I remember there
was since I was working for the developer, I was
always around the contractors and one of the owners of
the construction company, Big Big Construction Company was always placing

(07:41):
bet on his phone and he was talking to his
bookie like he'd pay they want twenty thousand dollars on
the Dodgers tonight. I'm thinking, gosh, what who's the guy
on the other end taking his bet? I want to
I want to do that so fast forward I get
I get canned. During the recession, I'm like, wock, what
am I going to do now? And I remember I

(08:04):
remember that guy placed in his bets and I said,
you know what I'm gonna I'm going to figure out
how to become a bookie. I said that guy was
making good money obviously, So I remember I said, Dad,
you have a you got any booky friends? And I
remember my dad had a fly fishing buddy who was
this Italian guy, and he was he was a bookie.
And I told my dad, I said, hey, popsa I

(08:24):
just lost my job. I said, is there any way
you can connect me with Tony Son.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
We're not getting you involved in any illegal activity. You're crazy,
and I bagged them. I remember begging my dad. I said,
come on, Pop, just let me introduce me to Tony.
He said, no, Son, I'm not doing it. And I
finally convinced him. I said, just give me one one
meeting with Tony. He gave me a meeting with Tony
and Tony told me no, I don't want you doing this.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I was able to convince Tony to get to
his guys and I got to the main bookmaker and
told him who I was. I said, Hey, I was
an SC football player. I won two national championships. I
got a great network of people. My attorney brothers at
USC are all Newport Beach guys, Beverly Hills guys. I said,
I think I'd be good at this job. I just

(09:11):
lost my job in the real estate business. I said,
would you guys women be taking me taking any more?
Agents called sports Agency and they love the resume. They said, man,
if you have the client, hell, then let's let's see
you do it. So that's what I did. You know,
after my my first year in the book making, business.
I went to that contractor that was bet in twenty

(09:31):
dimes a game the Dodgers, and I was able to
get them. He lost a million dollars the first six
months with me. And that's where this criminal mind just
cook off.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
So when you started doing the boogie, did you ever
the drugs come back into it as well? Or are
you just kind of like yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I was like this concier now with this black
market concierge, and you know, guys from college are saying, hey,
you've got access to any of that cookies to have it,
you know, And I'm one of those guys that I
can't say no. So if you say, hey, I need
I'm not sleeping lone, I need a xanax, I'm the
type of guy will go, well, let me go get
you something to help you sleep. Where if a guy says, hey,

(10:10):
I need I need an adderall to stay up for
my test. I got finals this week, I'd find a
way to get somebody whatever they needed. See that's the
problem with me.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
See you're not in criminal You're a people pleaser. I
get that.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
I tell people, Yeah, I'm an entertainer, a people that's
the problem. So long story short, I start taking bets
right and I've taken I start taking bets internationally from
my office in Costa Rica. My office is I got
a call center in Peru, so I'm international now. Next

(10:44):
thing you know, I have an agent for me that's
that's working underneath me, and he's from Mexico and he's
he's like, I got the best client. Man. This guy
pays cash. Every Monday. He pays you. Don't worry. He's
the best. You don't need to know what he does.
The guy would lose like two hundred thousand on a
Sunday and Monday morning, I'd have a bag cash delivered
to my door stepsode I would tell my agent, I said, man,

(11:09):
you got the best client. Whatever he does, keep him,
keep him happy, give him twenty percent off his losses.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
I was gonna say, worse luck of a rich guy
I've ever heard of my entire life.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah. So I would give the guy twenty percent off
his losses if for like three weeks in a row
he would lose, and then finally the guy finally won.
He got me for like a quarter million. I remember
I called his agent, this this Mexican kid. I said, hey,
your guy's gonna win. He's gonna hit this Raiders parlay
and he's going to win quarter million dollars this week.

(11:40):
I said, I need you over here Sunday night to
pick up his cash once this this Sunday night football
game's over, because I said, I want you to deliver
this to him, just like he delivered his money to us.
I want you to give him the bag cash Monday morning,
right when the guy wakes up. So I remember, his
agent ran over, picked up the cash, delivered it to
this guy in Mexico. He got. I remember I'm only

(12:00):
two hours from the border. So he delivered it to
this guy in Mexico, Rosearyo, Mexico, and I remember getting
a message from the agent saying, man, my uncle was
very impressed how you paid him right away. And that
just opened up the can of worms because I was
so on top of my game. Next thing, you know,

(12:21):
the guys asking me if I can you know, have
some some contact with his uncle. I'm like, yeah, whatever,
whatever he needs, whatever he needs. So this guy reaches
out to me and he's just you know, I don't
know what he does at the time. He's like, wow,
I like the way you work going is there any
way you can can help me move some money in California.

(12:43):
I'm like, man, I got I got all these cash
all over with all these different bookies. I said, yeah,
whatever you need, he goes, I'm willing to pay you
ten percent. So I remember I had to get one
hundred thousand for him in San Diego and delivered to
somebody in La. You know, it was easy for me
because I have I have all these bookies all over California,
so it's just one phone call like, okay, hey Johnny,

(13:04):
pick up that hunter K in San Diego and then
call my guy Toni and you know San Francisco, Hey, Tony,
can you drop off a hunter K to Ricardo over here?
It was that easy. So it was like a banking
system within a banking system, just a phone call away.
So I was able to we'll call him El Hafe.

(13:24):
I was able to move l Halfe's money like that,
and he'd pay me ten percent of whatever I did
for him. So that's how it's snowball. Didn I've come
to find out that, oh well, Hafe was involved in
you know, not only money launtering, but he was he
was a lieutenant for the cartel. So now I realized, Wow,
I'm in a little deep here, but I've already I've

(13:46):
already went down that rabbit hod on. So it's you know,
so it's like, fuck, what do we do now?

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I'm just going to assume right now you stop sending
out your resume for legit jobs.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Right, yeah, are over, I've already I've already gone down
the rabbit hole. I'm I'm deep now, gotcha. So that's
how that's how snowballed into this becoming this you know,
international kingdom.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
So when you when you when you start venturing into
this and you're starting to do the actual games, are
you tapping into the USC guys and kind of figuring
out ways to do some kind of point shaving or
figure out or you got to have any players that
are kind of clients that you're like, hey, you don't
need to pay me, just you know, don't make that
field goal.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
No, listen. I obsessed to be Many guys approached me,
many bookmakers in the business. You know, it's a it's
a very small business and everyone knows each other in
the book making business. I had many big top bookmakers,
you know, bigger than any of these casinos in Vegas,
they would reach out to me and say, hey, why
don't you talk to Lineard to Regie and see if
we can not cover that bread this coming week. You know,

(14:54):
we'll give you a half a million. I said, you
guys are out of your mind. I said, this is
a Vision one football. There's no way I'm going to
approach these guys. I said, we're no. Number one team
in the nation. This is the year that we played
Texas and lost in the finals. I said, there's no
way in hell I'm going to approach these guys with
something like that. So these guys are winners. I'm not

(15:14):
gonna do it. But definitely, it definitely came up. I'm
not gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I was gonna say, there's not going to be those guys.
Could just be alignment. Yeah, you know, maybe maybe you
get Yeah, maybe you just trip on that line. Maybe
you are maybe you block the wrong guy instead of
the guy who're supposed to block it on and you
get the sack.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah definitely, but yeah, it's It definitely came up, and
it's still to this day. You know, people are always
asking that same question.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
I guess the other question would be when it comes
to things like that, There's been a lot of there's
been documentaries about you. There's a thing on Visers. I
guess there's gonna be a docu series about you. You know,
Mark Wahlberg and all those guys talk about some of
the darker parts of it. I mean, obviously, when you're
dealing with this and people owe you money and things
that nature people may not want to pay. Yeah, what

(16:01):
are kinds of things that you would employ and things
that you would do to make sure people paid up
burn if you had to put a scare on somebody,
what were the some of the tactics that you would do.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, that's a that's a double edged short. There's so
many ways to go about it. You know. I have
my collection department where I have to pay, you know,
fifty percent of whatever they collect. And we're talking bloods
and crips that I've I've played sports with that I
have to reach out to. And some own gang members
that are four hundred pounds. I go by the name
of Godfather and Cobra. You know, there's there's all these

(16:34):
guys that I can use, but they cost me half
of whatever the money is. So if a guy who's
one hundred thousand he's not paying and I say it, say,
I send a guy named Godfather, go pick it up.
Godfather's picking up the hunter k and he's given me
only fifty K back. So I try to avoid those
situations just because a lot of times when you send
those guys, they're calling the cops. And that's that's the

(16:56):
dark part. You know. We don't want to put any
any kind of violence in this, so we just want
to put the fear of God in them where they
won't call the cops. So my best method was, you know,
I had a private eye that worked for me. He
was an next FBI agent, and he would get me
information on the family. So, hey, john Johnny had a

(17:21):
wife and kids, and I knew his wife, you know,
worked at you know, Northrope. I would send his wife
a bouquet of flowers, saying, you know, hey, let Johnny
know it's time to pay up his gambling debt. By
the time she got those flowers at work, she would
call her husband say I just got some flowers and says,
you have a gambling debt, and he'd be so scared

(17:42):
he'd call me within five minutes and say, hey, where
do you want the money? Dropped off the little tactics
like that we've used. You know, we try to avoid
the violence because the violence is look at you life
sentences interesting.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Interesting. And also there was a story apparently about you
once paid a guy to leave fike blood on a
headstone for the mother of a guy who owed him money.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that wasn't supposed to go down that way, but
it did. That was plan B the original idea. The
guy with me two point five million, that he pretty
much stole who he was. He was, he was laundering
the money through the casinos. He was successful. He was
successful one the first one point five million, he got
paid twenty five percent do it, and he came back
to do two point five and he was, you know,

(18:28):
the same same contract, twenty five percent of whateverever he gets,
he gets, keep it. So two point five he's making
like six hundred grand, and I was he supposedly lost
the money, So I'm like, what the fuck, There's no
way you lose that kind of money. Long story short,
he's he's ducking and diving, and I knew he had

(18:48):
a very good relationship with his mother. Everywhere I was reading,
my private investigator was finding out like when his mom died.
It was like the hardest time for him. Was like, oh, okay,
that's good to know. Let's do this. I told my
private eye. I said, why don't you go to where
his mom's buried? And I said, why don't you get
the tombstone for collateral? I said, bring me the tombstone

(19:10):
and I'll hold on to it, and that's how we're
gonna get our two point five million. He says, okay,
I like the idea. I'll do that. I'm like, pei,
you know. I give him his his salary plus a bonus.
And he gets to the tombstone and the thing's like
six feet tall, fucking six hundred pounds.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I was gonna say, you can't just walk away with
a stop.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
He's like, man, I can't take this thing out. So
I'm like, well, fuck, what do we do now? He's like,
you know what I could do? He said, I could
throw some red pain and we could like photoshop you
digging this thing out. I'm like, pland huh. That's all
we got. And he's like, yeah, this is He drove
all the way across town. He's in Pennsylvania. You know what,
I said, you're already there. I've already done, you know,

(19:51):
five thousand bucks to have you go down there and
pulled this thing out. You're not going to get it.
So he ends up throwing the red pain on the
grave and he was racked to California. He goes, okay,
let's let's go to shop. Yet, let's go to shop.
You standing in front of the grave like you're you're digging.
You know, I'm not gonna lie. I regret doing that
because it's just so stupid. It is what it is.

(20:14):
It happened, and it was. It was Plan D and
Plan B backbart.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
So with every great mobster story comes the end, the bust,
liking Good Fellas and everything else. What was your takedown?
What did you do? Did somebody roll on you look
at me using lingo like I know the like I
know like a mob That's how you know. I've watched
way too many Casino and Good Fellas of my time.

(20:40):
What happened? How did you go down?

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, it only takes one guy. And that guy that
uh that lost my money? What did he do? He
ran to the FBI and he was scared for his life.
He lost, you know, two and a half million dollars
in mine and he went to the FBI and he
became the confidential informant and he wired up and he

(21:03):
tried to take me down, and he, you know, he succeeded.
The try to get me to say certain things and
do certain things on the phone, like hey, I got
to get that two point five million I lost for
you back. I mean, let me help you out. What
do I do? And this whole time, you know, the
fans are watching me for five years, they're following me.
I got the FBI behind me, I got the new

(21:26):
South Wales Organized Crime Squad following me. You know, this
is this is the international operation.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
That's so that is so interesting because it's funny how
like when people try to get you that they try
to like it's almost from my experience of only watching
television shows on this stuff in the movies, but from
what you're saying, it sounds like it does happen when
they're like they become very obvious about it. I need
that two point five million dollars that we were gambling

(21:53):
on that you need to pay, like they pretty much
it's so obvious. How do you not know that they're
trying to send you off?

Speaker 2 (21:59):
You know, well, yeah, you definitely know, because why is
he saying, Hey, I'm ready to launish some more money
for you.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, nobody, Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to commit a
Class one felony for you anytime you want me to.
What would you like me to do?

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Exactly? So this is what he did. He just he
kept trying to poke the bear, and uh, I lost
this money. He lost this money, but I was responsible
for it. But at the end of the day, I
had to go back and work for the cartel to
pay him back.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Now what is that? What does that consist of?

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, they put they put a four million dollars you know,
marker on my head. So they said, if you don't
pay back the four million, because the same day he
lost the two point five, one of my runners got
picked off with seven hundred k because the same guy
that lost the money called the police and said, there's
a there's a guy that has a gun in a
suitcase and it was one of my runners and they

(22:58):
stopped him and he didn't have a gun in the suitcase,
he had seven hundred k of mine. So the same
day I lost three point two million in one day,
and I was like, fuck, today, that's not my money.
So when I uh, I ended up going down to Mexico,
I had to break from the news. You know, I
thought I was going to be killed. I said, listen,
this guy lost three point two million dollars of yours.

(23:20):
I'm talking to this cartel boss and he's like, here's
there's no way. And I you know, at that time,
there was already newspaper articles coming out about the suitcase
being found. So I told him, I said, now, this
is all public records. So I showed him, what do
you want me to do? He goes, you don't. You
don't owe me three point two He goes, you have
me four million. Now, he says, you're gonna pay me

(23:41):
back every dollar. You know. I said, fuck, okay, well,
at least I'm not dad. You know, I had that
goll for me. So so you know what I did.
I said, fuck, that's you know, I'm an honorable person.
I've been in the gaming business. My dad says, you know,
you know, you never steal from anybody, and you always
pay back your meeting you owe anybody. And so next

(24:01):
two years I worked for the carptel and I was
on the run from the FBI. They're chasing me. And
I know they're there, and I know they're following me.
I got to pay these guys back. That's If I
don't pay them back, they're gonna kill me and my family.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
What kind of work are you doing cartel wise? Are
you just kind of making pickups? Are you doing like
are you pretty much doing all the gambling and stuff
for them? Are you moving their money? I mean, what
does what does that consist of?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
No, sorry forgetting off. It consisted of me basically becoming
the quarterback in Los Angeles and moving the product from
from Los Angeles to Australia, from Los Angeles to Canada,
from Los Angeles to New York. Oh wow, Philadelphia. So
I basically became the logistics coordinator for the cartels.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Oh my god, this has ozarks righting all over it.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
It's a big story. Man. People are like, man, this
is too good to be true. I said that this
really happens.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean, everything you are, every mobster, movie, TV show
I've ever watched heard about rolled into one human being.
That is unbelievable. Joe, you you got a question for
what do you got?

Speaker 2 (25:07):
I do?

Speaker 4 (25:08):
So the whole show he tiny interpreter scandal. I guess
if you will, do you follow that story at all
and have any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, So when I got busted, my my one of
my best friends, bookmaker Matt Boyer, took over all my
clients in the gambling business, and I get out of
federal prison. In my buddy Matt boy Er. What do
you know, he's the front front bookie of this show
Gunatani interpreter. So I definitely follow it. I've been following
because it's my best friend that's got indicted on the case.

(25:41):
And uh, it's hard to believe, you know. I think
Shogatani is a gambler, That's what I think.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, there's a there's I mean, it's hard to just
dismiss it completely, right, Like I feel like he can't
totally be clean. I mean there's no I guess there's
no way to prove it, but just there's something about it.
This teams off to me.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, usually if it smells like a duck, it's a
stuck right, So it's it's got to be like, why
how can you how can you tell me that your
interpreter's betting millions of dollars or he doesn't have that
kind of money to be gambled.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
Right, Yeah, any time you don't know about it.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, So I personally think I'm never gonna ask my
boy about it because you know, his stuff is private
with sports and and whatnot. So I can't really dig
into that situation and ask because it's kind of a private.
You know, it's a private thing and I don't want to,
you know, get involved with it. But I personally think

(26:39):
that shogun Atani is definitely gambling if if it was me.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
In that same vein, because we're kind of going with
the sports part of it. The Jordan's dad story, Michael
Jordan's father, it's probably one of the publicized controversies in
all of anything that's gambling or sports. A lot of
people think that he was murdered because of his gambling
or Jordan's gambling. Do you have any knowledge or any

(27:04):
assumptions of what that was as well?

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Well, listen, I don't. I don't have any knowledge, but
I know I know for sure Jordan's a gambler. I've
got a lot of friends that.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well that I've I've heard a lot of gambling stories
of Jordan that's both sized.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
To make things clear, everyone that has told me they've
gambled with Jordan. They say he pays a debt. You know,
he's not a Phil Micholson. That's stiff in all these bookies.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
I forgot about that too. That's a good bring up.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, so I don't see. But maybe maybe maybe the
father had a little gambling in him as well. You know,
gotcha if I was the guest, I don't think Jordan.
Jordan's you know, stiff and bookies and people are getting
to act because his debt. The guy's a billionaire.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Well that is definitely an interesting way to do it.
Oh It Hanson, the California kid from USC Golden Boy
to international drug pin, drug kingpin. The book is out.
You gotta want to pick that one up. You'll be
thankful for that. And again, Mark Wahlberg, I mean, I
know this is going into a possible docu series. Is
that something that you're involved in or is this something
that you sold your story and it's going it's going

(28:11):
out to people like that? How is that? How is
that a whole thing working out?

Speaker 2 (28:16):
You know that's the rumor. But let's just stay tuned.
That's all I got to say.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Well, if it becomes a thing, I want to play
a mob Boss. That's it. I've got mob boss written
all over me. So is something becomes of it? Keep
me in mind? All right. So what we do on
this show, it is called arguments and a few things
that we like to do is just the main topics
that have no real answer to it, just fun stuff.
And because you have some background and things of mobsters

(28:45):
in the land of fictional mobster characters that are out there,
if they were all to be in one room, who
stands the tallest at a room full of mobster dons
and kingpins? Who would you say would be the tallest
to that room?

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Man, that's a tough one. I would say, I would
think you go with Michael Corleone, you know, the Godfather. Oh,
that is a good one. He's the cold blooded, ruthless motherfucker.
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
That's a good one. That is a good one. All right,
Big Joe, who are you standing tall? Who's the one
you're looking at? Personally?

Speaker 4 (29:25):
I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Michael Corleone. I I
just think you so quiet and just quietly ruthless. He
just I mean, that's a guy just on screen, just
completely intimidating.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
There's so many of them. Tony Soprano is a large one.
I think he would be walking around pretty tall in
that room. I love Margaret mcorleone, but you know what,
I would be more afraid of the scarface that Tony
Montana than I would Mark that Tony would definitely probably
be the most The Lucis there's not the DONNYE. Broscos
would be pretty good. That's right, That's right. I'm just

(30:04):
trying to think of different movies that these guys were
all in together. There's also Mike was it My Blue
Heaven with Steve Marty was a pretty funny guy. The
Good Fellaws guys I would be afraid of. I would
be afraid to be in any room with Robert de
Niro from any of those movies, along with Joe Pesci
and Pauli from Goodfellas. I mean that guy didn't exactly

(30:25):
he just went out in jail, but they were all
bounding down to him. I would have to say Marlon
Brando is probably the one. I would think it would
be the tallest one in that one, because even though
Michael Corleone, I mean he just had, you know, he
just had that quiet thing. Brando was playing chests with
these guys. He knew where everybody was coming from. He
knew every move that everybody was gonna make. He even

(30:47):
told him it's going to come from a friend, not
some random person. When they come to kill you, it's
going to be from a bunch of yours looking to
try to you know, give you, try to be somebody
that's a ports you in, and they're gonna be the
one end up killing you. So for me, I think
if we got a giant room full of those guys.
Marlon Brando's is the number.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
One, Yeah, very powerful, gambling, bootlegging, prostitution, He had the union, corruption.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
And he did everyone want to do the drugs. That
was the one thing you did with He's like, I
don't want the drugs. I got everything else. Good luck
to everybody else I got, I got what I want.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, I should have. I should have followed his advice.
The drugs. The drugs is what fucked me. Everyone I
talked to says, man, you could have just been a bookie.
You'd have been fine. No one's getting a slap on
the wrist for that.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
That's true. And now that was legalized. Now now the
gambling part is legalized.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, yeah, So yeah, I should have listened to.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
It just moves too fast, right, everybody I know that's
ever been in any kind of situation like that. It
just it's clean, there's no smell. It just moves too fast.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I do have one more.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Real quick So how did legalization change the sports betting game?

Speaker 2 (31:57):
You know that one good question? Yeah, you know it
doesn't change. I'll tell you why because in the bookie business,
we give a line of credit. In fan Duel and
all these big legal companies, you're putting your credit card
down and you're you're posting. It's called post up, so
you're posting your money up. As a gambler, you don't

(32:17):
want to give your money up. You want to feel
like you're not losing your money. So when you get
a line of credit, I'll give you a ten thousand
dollars line of credit a week. It feels like you're
not out of pocket. And then come Wednesday when you're
ready to bet that Thursday night game and you lose
that first Thursday night game if you're chasing. So now
your line of credits, you know, we got them until
we want them to max out by Sunday, because come Mondays,

(32:39):
when you got to pay. So as a player, you
want bookies like myself, Matt Boyer's all these you know,
underground bookies. You want them because they're giving you a
line of credit and you don't have to worry about
actually giving part cash up.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Question for you, out of all the mobster movies that
are out there, the TV shows and anything that's out
there that is related to all this stuff, what is
the closest that you can relate to to any of
those movies or TV shows that have been made.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Man, that's a good question, you know. I would I
would say as far as the fast paced, I would
say blow. And then I would say that's a yeah.
You put blow, but you put a twist on it.
You start putting these als celebrities, these these football players,

(33:31):
these these professional athletes. So it's it's got a twist
to it. So it would be like Friday Night Light
needs blow.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Is there any any celebrities you can tell who were
maybe dabbling with you?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Or no listed in the book. You're going to have
to read it, but it definitely talks about you know,
NFL players, And I'll give you a little paste. There's
Paris Hilton makes a big Super Bowl bet with me.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Can you give us that story, give them the give
our listeners a little, a little taste of the goods.
They can buy the book.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Absolutely, make sure they buy it at the californiakid dot
com because that's where you know, I make the money.
If you go to Amazon, I make a dollar. If
you go to my website, I make ten bucks.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Oh, give us that. Give us that website again.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Www dot the californiakid dot com, just like the book.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
The californiakid dot com. And I'll make sure that people
that are listening to this podcast, I will have it
linked in hyperlinked on the description of this podcast. All right,
give us the Paris Hilton.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah. I was in Vegas and I got a call
from one of my clients and his name was Doug Reiner,
and he gave me a call and said, hey, he
was dating Paris at the time. He was dating here
for like three years. He's like, Hey, I'm with Paris
right now. We're at a Super Bowl party. She wants
to bet ten dimes on the game. And for you guys,
I don't know what ten dimes is. That's ten thousand dollars, okay,

(34:52):
And she want to bet the money lineer spread. He's like,
she wants to bet the spread. It was minus three
and he I said, all right, it's eleven thousand to
win ten thousand because you charged ten percent. He goes, okay,
that's it, and I said, okay, I I put her
bet on your account, sure enough for a bet lost

(35:12):
and I remember now and Doug, okay, how do you
want me to get this payment since it's on your account.
He's like, don't worry. Parish's assistant's going to write you
a check. So come tuesday, I'll flew down to California.
At the time, I think they just I picked up
that check from Parislson's assistant and sure enough of cash.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I was going to say, that is like, isn't that
like a fau pod number one? Don't pay for hookers
or gambling with personal checks. I thought that was like.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
A yeah, yeah, I was caught off guard. But listen,
I always tell people, I'll take any kind of money
that you're gonna give me as.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Lot as it goes from your account to my account.
I don't care how it counts. Is there any other
celebrity or athlete, maybe just named you don't have to
tell the stories but any names you can drop.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Definitely's Reggie Bushes in my book, so you know this
is my one of my best friend Derek Withbell, who's
the three times super Bowl champs in the book, Man
Peto Ortiz, Chuck Withdell, Oh, my boys from Vegas. So
there's there's definitely some athletes in the book for sure.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Very goal.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Well.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh and I appreciate you coming on this show with us.
Man you're your fun. I appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Guys, all right, go to www dot the californiakid dot com.
The book is called The California Kid from USC Golden
Boy to International drug Kingpin ohen Hanson. Thanks so much
for jumping on the show. And that's going to do
it for another fun edition of Barguments once again. I
am your host, Dan Levy with Joe Kelly. Please go
ahead and subscribe, share with your friends, Tell anybody that

(36:43):
wants to get involved in the arguments to go ahead
and share our share this show. The podcast is for
everybody's fun. It's free, so you can't avoid it. There
and if you want to go ahead and get involved
in some more arguments, we have a Facebook group called Arguments,
and that's where we have a lot of lot ofly discussions.
Every day, people are thrown on topics and we go
back and and it's a good time. And also I
am heard on WGN every Monday night with John Records Landegger.

(37:05):
We do what's called a food fight argument where we
pick a topic, we argue it, and we go until
the last man is standing. So once again for Joe
Kelly omnian Levy you've been listening to Arguments. Will do
it again soon
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