Billy Incardona - Part 3 (The Hustler's Paradise - the Wild Days of Johnson City
In this third installment of our six-part conversation with pool legend and all-time hustler Billy Incardona, we dive deep into the wild, unfiltered golden age of American pool — a time when the cues cracked, the cash flowed, and the characters were larger than life.
Billy takes us straight into the heart of Johnson City, Illinois, home of the famed Jansco Brothers’ “Hustlers Jamboree.” With his trademark mix of humor and candor, he recalls the smoky taverns, all-night action, and the unforgettable personalities who made the event a gambler’s paradise. From Luther “Wimpy” Lassiter and Boston Shorty to the chaos of FBI raids and backroom card games, Billy paints a vivid picture of pool’s most colorful era — where everyone who mattered showed up to play, gamble, and live the life.
The conversation then drifts west to Las Vegas, where Billy recounts his foray into high-stakes sports betting alongside poker giants Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese, and high-stakes gambler Billy Walters — even pioneering the city’s first two-way radio betting network. His stories of bookmaking, halftime lines, and run-ins with big names showcase the hustler’s instinct that made him one of the sharpest minds in any game.
Finally, Billy reflects on his evolution from player to broadcasting legend, becoming the iconic voice of Accu-Stats. With partners like Grady Matthews, Danny DiLiberto, and Mark Wilson, he helped immortalize the game on film — often sparring and laughing his way through the booth.
It’s pool history told the only way Billy knows how — raw, riveting, and straight from the heart of the action.
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Music by Lyrium.
About
"Legends of the Cue" is a pool history podcast featuring interviews with Pool Hall of Fame members, winners of major championships and other people of influence in and around pocket billiards. We also plan to highlight memorable pool brands, events and venues. Focusing on the positive aspects of the sport, we aim to create and provide an engaging and timeless repository of content that listeners can enjoy now and forever. Co-hosted by WPA and BCA Hall of Fame member Allison Fisher, Mosconi Cup player and captain Mark Wilson, our podcast focuses on telling the life stories of pool's greatest, in their voices. Join Allison, Mark and Mike Gonzalez for “Legends of the Cue.”
Pool Professional
Billy “Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona is one of pocket billiards’ rare, enduring hybrids: a feared action player with a surgeon’s understanding of one-pocket, a nine-ball force from the era when road men wrote their own rules, and, later, the unmistakable broadcast voice who helped teach the modern world how champions actually think. Born December 2, 1943, and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Incardona’s story is inseparable from the gritty romance of American poolrooms, places where talent mattered, nerve mattered more, and reputation was currency you guarded as carefully as the cash in your pocket.
On our Legends of the Cue six-part series, Billy takes listeners back to the origin point: a kid’s fascination that becomes an obsession, and then becomes a life. He describes those early days in Pittsburgh, learning at places like the YMCA, soaking up patterns and angles, and quickly discovering that pool wasn’t only a game of balls and pockets, but a game of people: who’s watching, who’s talking, who’s under pressure, and who’s pretending not to be. That “people-reading” skill becomes one of his defining traits. Billy wasn’t just learning how to run racks, he was learning how to "match up", how to hide speed, and how to control the emotional temperature of a room.
Pittsburgh in those years was fertile soil for that kind of education. The city produced tough players and sharp minds, and Billy grew up in an environment where pool culture was both competitive and intensely social, where you could learn a world-class lesson simply by keeping your mou…Read More