Lyle Berman is Roasted and Toasted

Lyle Berman, the chairman and CEO of Indian gaming monolith Lakes Entertainment, the moneyman behind the World Poker Tour, and quite possibly the wealthiest man in the poker and gaming world after Barry Shulman, was well-roasted by friends and colleagues during The Bicycle Casino's 2004 Legends of Poker tournament. At this annual dinner ceremony, the multimillionaire entrepreneur was portrayed as cheap, humorless, and a pigeon in high-stakes poker games. But at the end, roastmaster Mike Sexton also toasted him, along with his WPT partner Steve Lipscomb, as the men who, in 18 months, changed the way the world looks at poker.

Sexton set the tone for the evening when he said the only reason they were honoring Berman was because he was a "rich bastard" who had so many people with their heads up his ass that he won the K-Y Jelly man of the year award. From there he got less complimentary, telling the audience that Berman was as popular as an alarm clock, had the personality of an ant, was greedy as well as cheap, and that nobody would have bothered to show up if it weren't for the immediately following Jerry Buss/Frank Mariani charity tournament. "You may be a big shot in Minnesota," Sexton told him, "but here they put you in a tent" (where the event was staged).

The first roaster was Wendeen Eolis, introduced by Sexton as the 'Poker Dame' who has been admired for years, but not recently." Eolis mentioned bondholder losses and disappointing WPT stock offering, and described some failed negotiations that Berman had with Donald Trump. "You came all the way from New York for that?" Sexton asked incredulously when she sat down.

Coming back on, Sexton worked the cheap angle again, saying Berman wouldn't buy a round of drinks at an AA meeting, and that his slogan was a friend in need was someone to avoid.

The next speaker was T.J. Cloutier. He said one of the reasons Berman was so rich was based on his tipping. After T.J. had won their first tournament in partnership, Berman came up with a convoluted way of figuring the dealer tip based on dealer hours divided by some abstract number. It resulted in a number so low that if T.J. had used it, his ears would burn every time he passed a dealer. T.J. also said that while Berman had a reputation as a real smart man, every so often he would get a call from him asking for advice on a terrible deal he was considering. Example: buying the Horseshoe card club in Gardena after major casinos in nearby areas had pretty much killed Gardena poker.

The next speaker was Jack Malisow, vice president of marketing for Lakes Entertainment. He described Berman's addiction to pot – cooking pots, that is. Berman, it seems, had collected so many, they filled every corner of his house. A slide show then showed a collection of pots, all of them identical and ugly, that Berman had accumulated at ever-increasing prices. The last one, Malisow said, had cost $38,000 and was purchased from a seller who said he had to go underground. A picture of the seller then flashed on the screen: Saddam Hussein.

The next speaker was Doyle Brunson, who was then gracing the cover of Card Player with four candid photos. Sexton called it the ugliest cover in the history of the magazine. "The same stinking picture four times! I wish Jeff Shulman was here."

Brunson recalled how Berman was once part of a group of poker luminaries honored by Binion's Horseshoe with commemorative chips. All the chips, except those with Berman's likeness, sold out immediately, Brunson recalled. Berman was reduced to handing them out to passersby.

Sexton then related a story of driving in Berman's limo when they saw a man by the side of the road eating grass. Berman asked the man why, and he said he was destitute and hungry. Berman then took the man home with him. When the man expressed his gratitude, Berman said, "I appreciate you, sir. The grass here is 3 feet high."

The next guest was "Captain" Tom Franklin. Sexton noted that Berman had hired the captain to help with his operations in Biloxi, but it wasn't long before he busted him to private. Franklin came on doing a drunk imitation. He said he asked Berman if he had any gin. Berman said, "Sure, oxygen, nitrogen … " Franklin told the story of how Berman's girlfriend, Linda, had been to a doctor who told her she had the body of a 20-year-old. "What about that 60-year-old ass?" Berman replied. "He didn't mention you," she said. He then told of a high-stakes Chinese poker game in which he helped Berman set the cards, won him $78,000 in 20 minutes, and was chewed out because of a hand in which Franklin could have won $6,000 more. He told of how he earned $30 million for Berman by restructuring his pai gow game, and all he got was a $20,000 bonus. "He's so dumb, he thinks business ethics is an oxymoron."

Lipscomb, the next speaker, called Berman the most unfair negotiator he's ever met in his entire life. When Berman offered him a job, Lipscomb said he really didn't want a real job, so he demanded his entire family be relocated with him, a house, a car, and so on, and so on. "You know how unfair this guy is? He said OK." Lipscomb belittled Berman's storied accomplishments as a businessman in the gaming industry. "What in the hell were you doing before the World Poker Tour?" he demanded to know. He said he asked Berman how he was doing in his regular big game, and Berman said he was pretty much even. "Right, that's why Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, and all those other guys change their schedules when Lyle comes into town."

Sexton then explained that Chip Reese was supposed to be one of the roasters, but begged off, saying he wanted to play poker with him, not roast him. Sexton said that Reese doesn't even leave the house anymore unless Berman is in town.

Next up was comedian Craig Shoemaker, introduced, to Berman's bewilderment, as his childhood friend. "Where's the $10 you owe me?" Shoemaker asked T.J. The comedian then confessed he had no idea who Berman was or what he was doing there, and kept calling Berman by a wrong name, claiming he thought it was Lyle Lovett who would be on the podium.

Turning to a puzzled Berman, he said, "I know your type. I'll bet you got your ass kicked in school. You'd say, 'I'll show you. I'm going to be a multimillionaire.'"

The really funny part came when he segued into his trademark raucous routine as "The Lovemaster." Staring at Barbara Enright at a front table, he fired off his usual lines, such as, "Stand back. I might poke your eye out." While Enright, along with the rest of the audience, was collapsing in laughter, Berman was staring blankly into space, obviously wondering, "Who the hell is this guy?"

When it was Berman's turn to respond, everyone in the audience (cued when Berman took a bathroom break) stood up and started to walk away, until Berman yelled for them to come back. Attacking his attackers, he first hit on Sexton. If he was such a great poker player, Berman asked, why did he give it up to become an announcer, "which, between you and me, doesn't pay much." Turning on Eolis, he ridiculed her self-proclaimed reputation for being the ultimate insider. He asked anyone in the audience to stand up if he or she knew anyone Eolis didn't know. "She knows everyone," he mocked. "And very well."

As for T.J., he said it was easy to make fun of his fondness for craps. What people didn't know, he pointed out, was that T.J. once started with $375, held the dice for three and a half hours, and won $650,000. "The reason nobody heard of it was because it never happened." He then discussed at some length Brunson's million-dollar weight-loss bets and his claims of meeting his goals. "He's never won a weight-loss bet in his life," he confided.

Finally, Berman talked about his partner Lipscomb, who he said became a producer only because he couldn't make it as a lawyer. Lipscomb, he revealed, has a huge ego. The first season, the WPT telecasts at the end read, "Produced by … " The second season, the credit read, "Created by … " The third season, he predicted, the credit will have a smiling photo of Lipscomb, reading, "Created and produced by Steve Lipscomb."