The robbers may have counted on the silence that has long kept these places in the shadows: The gambling is illegal, so owners and bettors are unlikely to report crimes.
Fulham are in Chelsea's shadow, but QPR, gambling on Premier League football filling a new ground, and Brentford, progressive and promotion-chasing, are emerging forces in West London.
Meyer Lansky casts a shadow as Batista's "gambling adviser".
That gamble, shadowed by the failure last year of the Iridium satellite telephone system, now looks like another long shot: Wall Street is up in arms, a bank loan is in default and his junk bonds recently traded at less than 30 cents on the dollar.
Gordon Taylor, head of the PFA, said that "It is making our youngsters vulnerable, without a shadow of a doubt…..Youngsters and gambling is a bad mix, and an unhealthy one".
He attacked critics such as Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, saying: "Our critics gamble everything: our credibility, our financial stability, our low interest rates, the cost of our debt – they would risk everything on the dubious idea that a few billion more of spending would dramatically improve the fortunes of a trillion and a half-pound British economy".
That was a reference to Mr. Singson and several other cronies -- politicians and businessmen -- who shadow Mr. Estrada everywhere, drinking and gambling with him into the small hours of the morning.
Rather than have sports gambling operate in the shadows, it should be brought out into the open.
First, governments worldwide need to legalize sports betting, or at the very least, bring illegal gambling out of the shadows so it can be kept from influencing the outcomes of sporting events.
The Tory leader took what shadow cabinet ministers freely admit was a gamble in throwing his weight behind his fellow Etonian as the best "out-of-the-box" candidate to take on Livingstone.
