Steve Stevens (sports handicapper)

Early life

Darin Notaro was born in 1974 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spent his childhood. His mother worked as a singer at the Sundance Hotel for around fifteen years, while his father worked as a craps dealer. Notaro states that he has been involved with gambling his entire life, and by the age of twelve he was betting parlays. He was also an avid sports fan and had an interest in sports betting. As a teenager he took his first job as a salesman at a telemarketing company, and the year before he graduated high school he says he was paid over a quarter-million dollars in commissions. In 1995, he and several fellow employees were indicted for wire fraud and abetting a telemarketing scam operated by the business owners. Though Notaro has since stated that he had been unaware of the racket and was just hired "to read a script," he was sentenced to eighteen months in jail and later served time for violating probation. About his early career as a salesman, he has stated "when I looked back on what I did, I knew that it was wrong, but I realized that I wasn't really such a bad guy. I just realized I took my sales talent and was selling the wrong product."

VIP Sports Las Vegas

Shortly after his release in late 2000, Notaro was introduced to the sports-tout business by some close friends. According to Notaro, “I was looking for another gig where I could use my sales talent to become successful in something." He initially worked several sales rooms in Las Vegas as a telemarketer, and later opened a one-person office in Las Vegas, focusing on the business of sports betting. He began picking games professionally in 2001, and soon began professionally consulting as a sports betting advisor under the name Steve Stevens, though in non-professional settings he continued to go by his given name. He opened a larger Las Vegas office in 2010, becoming the owner and operator of Executive VIP Services International, which operates the consulting company VIP Sports Las Vegas.

For a weekly fee, or a strict commission plan, the firm gives clients tips on which major college and pro sports teams to bet on, with all final betting picks made by Notaro. The CNBC production mainly featured Notaro working with wealthy clients, only paying Notaro a percentage of their realized winnings. In explaining his business model, he has stated "I don't get paid unless my client gets paid", adding "I'm still telemarketing, closing deals, because after all, if you have all the winning games in the world, if you don’t have any people to give them to, your games really don’t mean nothing. So it’s a sale. In other words, I need to convince you to trust me. Then I have to showcase my talent.” From 2012 to around 2013, business doubled at VIP Sports Las Vegas, and at that point the company stated they sold advice to about 2,000 clients per week. About how he secures his information, Notaro explains “I don’t get information from locker rooms. I know NBA players, I know Major League players, I know all that. I don’t get any information from any of them."

Money Talks production and debut

Early in his betting career Notaro befriended boxer Floyd Mayweather, who's boxing gym would at some point be in the same building where Notaro worked. Mayweather's production team, which makes the HBO documentary series 24/7, broached the idea of filming "the sports-tout world for a reality series about a phone-room operation." Mayweather introduced the team to Notaro, and the show went into development with Notaro appearing as Steve Stevens. According to the Las Vegas Sun, "after a winter-preview screening of the show, network officials [at CNBC] received such a pro-and-con shock reaction that they agreed the entire show would focus on gambling in Las Vegas through Steve’s company." The first eight episodes were produced by All3 Media America, Turn Left Productions and Lost Tribe Productions.

On July 27, 2013, CNBC announced it would be naming the sports-betting reality series Money Talks, and that the "docu-soap" would follow Stevens, "his stable of agents and the clients who risk big dollars in the hope these guys have the expertise to consistently deliver winners." As of August 2013, three episodes had been filmed, with the pilot to air in September. Production on thirteen more episodes was announced to begin on the same day as the premiere. After additional promotional material for the show continued to air publicly, Notaro's past record led to a fair amount of controversy in the press. In particular, one ad by Turn Left Productions claimed that Stevens' had an "outrageously big winning percentage" of 72 percent, which was derided in some press outlets as impossible. Notaro responded defensively to the scrutiny, stating that the percentages were just a publicity stunt by the studio, and that he himself had never advertised that percent in his own business dealings. He further responded that the show is about "his life and the sports-tout business operation, and not winning percentages or handicapping."

Money Talks 2014 episodes

On January 18, 2014, CNBC announced a second season of Money Talks, with eight more episodes to air. According to spokesman Jim Ackerman, "our goal at CNBC is to bring viewers intimate looks at all sorts of businesses. And the world of gambling, for the most part, has not been seen on reality television. It's an exciting world with colorful characters and major stakes." Wrote Variety, in season two "Las Vegas-based sports handicapper Steve Stevens is profiled as he works the angles of high-stakes betting and tries to settle into traditional family life." Like the previous season, it was produced by All3Media America in association with Turn Left Productions and Lost Tribe Productions. Ackerman served as the executive producer through CNBC, while other executive producers included Stephen Lambert, Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, Todd Crites, Jackson Nguyen and Myles Reiff.

The second season debuted on March 19, 2014, and was broadcast in the US, Canada, and several other countries. The season premiere drew around 200,000 viewers, with the season reaching a ratings peak in episode two which earned 250,000 viewers. The series was staggered behind The Profit and Shark Tank, and at times advertised in the same promos as the other two shows by CNBC." CNBC promoted the show for weeks, with televised advertisements that read "for the first time a series takes you inside the multi-billion dollar industry of sports betting." Despite criticism, Money Talks still remains the only reality show about sports-handicapping to air on the major platform of a primetime cable network.

The show follows both Notaro and his staff of sales agents, who man phones to close deals with new clients. According to a synopsis, Notaro "needs to keep his agents focused on building new business while he entertains big time bettors." At one point the employees are shown going through "300 names to land two or three new customers," in a process "depicted as a constant churn." The show also follows Notaro's personal life "as he tries to build a more traditional life with girlfriend Kelly, her two children, and their baby boy, whose birth was part of the season's first episode."

Personal life

Darin Notaro and his family continue to live in Las Vegas.

Legal

In 1995, Notaro and several other employees hired by a Las Vegas telemarketing company were arrested for wire fraud and abetting a telemarketing scam operated by the business owners. The arrest resulted in Notaro being convicted with what the Las Vegas Sun described as "six federal felony counts of telemarketing fraud by wire." At nineteen years old he was sentenced to serve eighteen months in jail, though the sentence was commuted and he was instead ordered to pay several thousand in restitution, fined, and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. Asked about his involvement in the company, Notaro has stated that "it makes me sick, [I] don’t like it at all. I got older and realized I was in a racket, a business that targeted elderly people, and at that time you don’t really look at it as targeting people like that... you’re just doing your job... and I was a good salesman cause I was an energetic kid."

As term of his release was Notaro was prohibited from any form of telemarketing, though he states, "as a young kid, I knew nothing else to do." He again took a job at a telemarketing operation in Las Vegas, with Notaro describing what he was doing as "sweepstakes telemarketing." In August 1998, the offices of Century Pacific Group in Las Vegas were raided by the FBI, and Notaro was one of several workers at the business who were arrested. At the time, he was on still on probation. While Notaro was initially charged with telemarketing without registration and violating probation by working as a telemarketer without a proper license, the owner of the company was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses and failing to provide workers' compensation insurance. Notaro was released on bail to await sentencing.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, in August 1999, Notaro, then 25 years old, was sentenced to one year in jail for "a gross misdemeanor count of conspiracy to commit unregistered telemarketing." His sentence began on September 8 at the Clark County Detention Center. Notaro served a year in prison and paid around $12,000 in restitution. Several months after his release in late 2000, in June 2001 he was detained in possible connection with another telemarketing sweepstakes scheme, though details were withheld from the press. According to Notaro, a story reported on the blog Wagerminds.com that he was convicted three times is incorrect.