Habitués to gambling wonder about the circumstances that gave rise to the special talent of Five Dimes Tony, a native from West Virginia. He created invincible algorithms to the delight of gamblers worldwide who enjoyed attempting to beat him holding matches in cyberspace.

Many were astounded by Five Dimes Tony’s talent expressed not only in his multiple winning streaks but also in his ability to divine the next move of most gamblers. Many believed that so much talent could not spring from the petite body of a teenage looking guy who preferred to discuss probabilities au lieu of having a good beer after every win. The guy was William Sean Creighton and his talents were partly groomed by his mother and partly inherited from a grit, hardworking and studious crowd of around 8,000 people living on the skirts of a West Virginia Appalachian mountain.  For those that know the territory, Creighton’s talents were the result of an age-old culture of collectors; a nature inclined, conserving and instructive community where he was resident. 

Bridgeport in West Virginia indeed is an Appalachian community.  The Appalachians are a rugged wall that kept inside the beauty of one of the most exuberant wildlife and the hardships of a deviant environment that had to be tamed to extract a living. Nature has shaped the minds and spirits of the Appalachian settlers from the beginning of times. The Adena nation understood this magical relation and strived to achieve a balance between nature and man. This relied on knowledge about the relations between the earth and the cosmos and the distance between earth and the stars. Their legacy has been kept in burial mounds that reveal deep knowledge of geometry. 

Geometry dominated the settling endeavors to secure safe living quarters to the growing population during the Secession War. Geometry stirred interest in mathematics and from there a skill was tuned and developed. Mathematics became the subject matter to learn by those that wanted to succeed. William Sean Creighton’s mother knew that and thus groomed her son to become a math champion. Creighton would then become a practitioner of all math applications in his life. He would excel in sport by means of estimating the relative strengths and weaknesses of his team and the rival team. He would guess which cards were on the table and which were in the hands of players applying simple calculus and he would correctly estimate probabilities for diverse events on a daily basis. From this storm of math applications, a talent to accurately estimate winning numbers developed. And that was Creighton’s differentiating attribute. 

With time he applied that talent to build gambling destinations which were successful and enduring. Today some aspects of his talent are inspiring the next wave of gambling as AI penetrates that activity. Indeed, the entry of AI into gambling is partially based upon his algorithms. Some people now reminisce about Creighton as the industry absorbs modernity. And most conclude that is far more exciting to share gambling with Five Dimes Tony than with some distant robot that has no soul.