Whenever he ran low on money to support his gambling, he stole and conned it from friends and strangers. He also passed bad checks. When he started gambling, casinos still took personal checks. He would write a check to the casino and use the money to gamble, believing he would win enough money to pay the casino back and keep the profit. However, he almost always lost. In a 2007 interview for ESPN's "Outside the Lines", he estimated that he'd stolen $1.5 million over the years, if not more.