Making a living betting on the NFL
By Obrey Brown, Sports Editor, Highland Community News
Thursday September 18, 2008
Highland, California
IT WAS JUST LIKE THE movies, or all those dime-store novels, or the old TV shows that depicted these kinds of guys.
I had been invited into the home, into the office, of a real-life, modern-day gambler -- a guy that makes his living putting money on NFL games.
The occasion was in meeting the guy, Mark Weberhardt of San Bernardino -- a resident of 28 years. His wife's a school district executive. “She's never placed a bet in her life,” laughs Mark. “The thing is, she knew I loved to gamble. When we got married, I wasn't (courageous) enough to do this full time.”
That came about a dozen years ago, the year he bet Denver to knock off Green Bay in the Super Bowl -- a season, incidentally, that was full of nice little upset picks like that.
“Don't let me mislead you too much,” he said, “about my ability to win big. It doesn't always work that way. A couple years earlier, I lost a bundle when I took the Chargers to beat San Francisco.”
He wouldn't be specific with his numbers, even though there were a few framed-up checks on the wall -- one for $28,000, another for $33,700 and yet another for $22,000, each with well-known gambling books. There were others, but I didn't want to appear to be snooping.
“They're all copies (of the checks),” he said. “You know that I had to cash the real checks. I'm not good enough at this that I can afford to put the real checks on the wall without cashing them.”
It's all legal, incidentally. His wagers are placed through legitimate bookmakers in Las Vegas. Weberhardt's research is limitless on NFL games -- injury reports, weather conditions, outdoor natural turf against indoor artificial surface results, rivalry match-ups, drafts, offensive line match-ups against defensive personalities.
Weberhardt's research goes so far as to match up the defensive and offensive coordinators. The Eagles' Jim Johnson is a personal favorite when he begins handicapping Philadelphia games.
“When (now-deceased) Fritz Shurmur was running defenses for the Rams and then the Packers,” he said, “I was always in the market for (passing) teams that played into his hands. I won game after game, especially when he coached against (those perennial Super Bowl favorite San Francisco) 49ers. Betting against the 49ers with the spread, I kept winning solidly every year.
“I don't think I ever lost a game when I bet against San Francisco. And that's quite a statement to make when they were so good for so long. I just wish the Chargers had Fritz running their defense.”
Any advice out there for our “recreational” handicappers?
“Always,” he said, “always, always … assume that the Vegas oddsmakers know what they're doing. Those point spreads they put out are excellent.”
Weberhardt searches every Vegas book to find out the games that may produce different point-spreads on the same match-ups -- something that rarely occurs. “There are things you can do when that happens,” he said.
Plus, he's only an NFL gambler. No college games here, please.
Very few of us even care -- or do we? -- about last year's AFC South Division rivalry games between Jacksonville and Tennessee. The Titans won the first duel, despite the Jags being favored by seven at home, 13-10. In the rematch, the Jags won, 28-13, despite being down to their third string QB.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” said Weberhardt. “I had the winners in both of those games. I won't say how much, but let me say it was double digits (over $10,000).”
Ever meet any of the players, or coaches?
“Never.”
Would it have helped?
“No. Frankly, it would've been kind of silly to meet anyone like that. I'm a gambler. They're under orders (by the NFL) to stay away from me. Don't even think of those terms. The closest I get to an NFL player is when I go to San Diego to watch the Chargers and they pass by us in our end zone seats.”
Ever get an inside tip that threw a game in his direction?
“Nothing really like that,” he said. “In fact, I don't have any connections to any team across the league, in any city. I talk to no one. Besides, there's so much reporting on every pro team, there's probably no way I could get anything any more substantial.”
Seems kind of disappointing, doesn't it?
“I tried to tell you I'm nothing special. I go to work like everyone else. I'm in the same business as the guy who sells insurance, or the guy who invests mutual funds. I work with money, numbers. In fact, the guy who does my investments goes with me to Vegas every now and then.”
Does he win?
“He's not as into it as I am. He likes watching the action, not participating in it. He's hit some winners on some big Sundays, though.”
Weberhardt's first-week picks … Giants, Patriots, Jets, Eagles, Steelers, the BEARS (over Indy, folks), Ravens, Saints, Titans, Falcons, Packers, Cowboys, Broncos -- losing on the Seahawks, 49ers and Chargers. Said Weberhardt: “I won $1,200 after all the bets cleared. Not great. Better than losing.”
By comparison, I was personally 6-8 in my first week in the office pool. This guy was 13-3 without breaking a sweat.
Who's going to win the Super Bowl this year?
“Right now, I've got it handicapped down to the Cowboys and Giants in the NFC. They'll player either New England, Indianapolis or Jacksonville.”
(In all fairness to Weberhardt, this was before Tom Brady's season-ending injury/surgery). What about the Chargers?
“They'll make the playoffs,” he said, “I think. I'm a little skeptical on them right now. I'm not really into the Saints right now. I need to watch the season play out a little.”
In the end, his thinking is this Super Bowl match-up: Dallas versus Jacksonville.
Feds Hound Bodog
Forbes.com
Janet Novack and William P. Barrett 07.30.08, 6:35 PM ET
The U.S. government recently seized $24 million from bank accounts linked to Bodog, the giant, illegal-under-U.S.-law Internet gaming operation founded by Canadian tycoon Calvin Ayre.
Federal filings make very clear that a serious criminal investigation of the Bodog enterprise is ongoing. At a minimum, word of the seizures is likely to rattle the confidence of U.S.-based online gamblers that they will receive their winnings, not only from Bodog but from the industry's other remaining participants.
Detailed in court filings in a Baltimore federal court, the Bodog-related seizures from such well-known institutions as Wachovia, Bank of America, SunTrust Banks and Regions Bank, a unit of Regions Financial, increase the possibility of criminal action against Ayre himself. There already has been published speculation in his native Canada that he is under secret indictment somewhere in the U.S.
The U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore, which launched the two lawsuits to take the $24 million, did not respond to a request for comment.
The flamboyant Ayre--media reports often call him a "playboy"--is now believed to be in Antigua and Barbuda, a country in the eastern Caribbean. He has denied being on the lam. A request on Wednesday for comment from Ayre, sent through the Web site of his Antigua-based Calvin Ayre Foundation, was not immediately returned. Nor were call and e-mail messages sent to public relations contacts listed on Bodog's Web site.
In early 2006 Ayre rocketed to international prominence--and the cover of Forbes magazine' annual issue on the world's billionaires--for his stewardship from Costa Rica of Bodog Entertainment Group and his open flouting of authorities in the U.S., his major market. The story headline: "Catch Me If You Can." The operation was said at the time to be handling $7.3 billion yearly in poker, casino and sports event wagers.
But since then, Ayre has been the subject of law-enforcement raids abroad and growing regulatory scrutiny, especially in the U.S. In late 2006 President Bush signed a law strengthening the prohibition on online gambling. Ayre fell off the Forbes worldwide billionaires list after just one year, amid a decline in his industry's fortunes.
In overall actions against the industry, federal prosecutors in New York have charged executives of Neteller with illegally processing online gaming transactions. This summer, Canada's ESI Entertainment Systems, an Internet payment business, entered into a "deferred prosecution agreement" with the same prosecutors. The company admitted to criminal wrongdoing and agreed to disgorge $9.1 million in criminal proceeds for its role in processing $2 billion in Internet gambling payments for hundreds of thousands of U.S. customers. Criminal cases have been started against various online gambling shops.
Ayre has been trying to put legal distance between himself and the operation he founded in the 1990s. For years its business was run through Internet servers belonging to Mohawk Internet Technologies, located on the Kahnawake Reserve Indian reservation in Quebec, Canada. In September 2007 Bodog said its North American operations would be licensed to Morris Mohawk Group, also located on the reservation and run by tribal chief Alwyn Morris.
Three months ago, Ayre, now 47, said he had transferred ownership of Bodog itself to Morris Mohawk Group. "It's true; I'm packing it in," Ayre wrote on a Web site.
Court filings in Maryland say that in January and February a total of $14.2 million was seized from accounts in the name of JBL Services and Transaction Solutions at Wachovia, Regions Bank, Bank of America and Sun Trust Bank. In July, filings say, another $9.9 million was found in eight accounts at Nevada State Bank, a unit of Zion Bancorporation, in the name of Zaftig Instantly Processed Payments, doing business as ZipPayments.com. The companies are described as helping to facilitate parts of the Bodog operation.
The court papers detail an elaborate international structure put together to allow Bodog to collect money and write checks to winning gamblers in the U.S. One affidavit by Randall S. Carrow, a special agent with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, said that $248 million involving entities linked to Bodog was processed through Wachovia Bank, from which $11 million of the $24 million was seized.
In a statement to Forbes, Wachovia said the bank cooperated with law enforcement, doesn't knowingly allow Internet gaming operations to open accounts, and the funds ending up at the bank were in accounts of a third-party credit card servicer. The statement also hinted that various accounts might have been kept open at the request of investigators to aid their efforts.
According to Carrow's detailed sworn statements, the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division started looking at Bodog in 2003 and opened a formal probe in 2006. The extensive sleuthing has involved close examination of public and bank records, the enlisting of unnamed cooperating witnesses and informants, and undercover efforts to make bets on football and collect winnings.
Ayre, says Carrow's statement, is president of Middleton Financial, a Nevada corporation described as a key cog in the U.S. Bodog machinery, as well as Stratham Finance, said to be based in Malta. Other entities linked to Ayre in the court filings are Gateway Financial Services, EBanx Ltd., Gregor Financial Ltd. and Calvtek Industries. The filings list dozens of businesses involved in processing Bodog transactions.
The ongoing federal pressure to disrupt Bodog's financial transactions may be bearing fruit. Carrow's affidavits say several checks issued from Bodog to its undercover gambler bounced.
A break in the inquiry came in May, one of Carrow's affidavits says, when an undercover operative for "another state's gambling commission" received a check that didn't bounce from an account at Nevada State Bank, which is headquartered in Las Vegas. That led to the $9.9 million seizure this month. The bank had no immediate comment.
Carrow's affidavits were filed in connection with the U.S.'s successful efforts to get a federal judge to authorize the seizures. But to keep the money permanently, federal prosecutors must file a civil lawsuit and allow a challenge by anyone with a claimed interest. No one fought the $14.2 million seizure, and it was ordered forfeited to the feds. The lawsuit over the $9.9 million--its official name is United States of America v. $9,869,283.05--was just filed.
Even before the advent of Bodog, Ayre carried considerable baggage. Close family members were convicted of drug trafficking. (Ayer himself was never charged.) In 1996 Ayre was banned for 20 years from the British Columbia securities industry for stock market offenses. By that time, he was already moving into online gaming.
"One of the things that drives me is the excitement that I could fail," he told Forbes in 2006. "What better buzz can you get?"
The Complete Square's Guide to Sports Wagering: Being Contrarian, Part I....
We often think of sports gambling as a battle of bettor versus bookie. However, that's not quite true, because betting lines are not static. If everyone is betting Team A at a line of -5, pretty soon the line will move to Team A -5.5, then Team A -6, and so on until a reasonable equilibrium is reached where betting interest starts to be generated (and money starts coming in) on their opponents. True, a linesmaker sets the opening line. But from there, the action is in the hands of the "market", all the players and sportsbooks collectively. When the normal balance goes askew due to a lot of "square money" on one side, "value" situations can arise.
A good comparison is the stock market. When everyone is optimistic and buying, prices rise, often causing the underlying stocks to become too expensive. Likewise, when the mood is pessimistic, stocks tend to become oversold. This is the old "fear and greed" dichotomy that seemingly defines the financial markets. And in general, those that have bucked the trends have been the most successful. In other words, if you want to make money, you should be buying when everyone else is selling, and selling when everyone else is buying. Buy in cold markets to pick up value, sell in hot markets where your investments are overpriced and you can receive more than they're fairly worth. This is an oversimplification, but a trend that mostly holds true.
The converse, buying when everyone else is also buying, means that you will likely pay too much for your investment because you are competing among a lot of other bidders who like that same investment - the old "supply and demand" conundrum. But in a cold market there is little competition to buy, and prices are lower since many want to sell. Therefore, you can make your purchase at a discount to "fair value". This same principal applies to sports betting. If you are betting the same team that everyone else is, you probably are paying too much for them, in the form of a line that is worse than deserved. Likewise, betting on teams that everyone else is scared to bet often earns you a slightly more generous line than normally warranted.
You can think of linesmaking as trying to accomplish one of two things: either balance out the sharp action with other sharp action on a game to hedge exposure, or instead balance the high-dollar sharp money with high-volume public money to cut downside risk. Since pro bettors will risk many times what a recreational gambler does, balancing the two sides is often difficult. In other words, sometimes the money will be evenly divided, with "sharps" on both sides, and public money making very little impact. Here the sharps define the market and the line is "fair value". Other times, the public money will become so overwhelming that the public drives the line and it becomes a battle of "sharps versus squares". Identifying these situations and siding with the "sharps" will tend to put luck on your side.
There are two conditions when the public money can offset wiseguy action. First, the event might attract enough squares to bring in the sheer volume of bets necessary to counteract the sharp wagers. This is the case for something like the NFL, which receives broad recreational wagering support, particularly on Monday Night Football and during the playoffs. The "MNF home underdog" angle held up for many years for this very reason.
The other situation where public money can overwhelm the market is when limits are kept low enough to minimize the damage the sharps can do. This situation applies to wagers like the UFC, which has decent public support combined with low limits, giving the average Joe more of a say in setting the market prices than in most sports. With $5000 bet limits, it takes 100 $50 bettors to balance one max wager from a sharp player. With $100 limits, it only takes two squares to neutralize that wiseguy. In other words, it is easier to counterbalance winning bettors when you severely cap the amount they can win per game, and this causes the lines to be biased towards "the public".
Contrarian strategy is not a golden goose. Ask anyone who played against the highly-favored Boston Celtics in the NBA finals, or those who faded the New England Patriots throughout the regular season at what seemed like over-inflated lines, only to watch the Pats go 10-6 against the spread (I am personally guilty on both counts). But patience is the contrarian's friend, and those same Patriots ended up going 0-3 ATS in the playoffs, when the stakes were higher. Indianapolis and Dallas also failed to cover a single game in the playoffs, despite being heavily favored (along with New England) in the futures lines.
The key to finding good contrarian situations is to be in tune with public perception surrounding players and teams. The teams everyone are betting hand-over-fist, the "can't lose locks", the teams on the highlight reels of Sportscenter, are the teams you should look to go against. The teams that everyone is scared to bet likely hold hidden value. In the next installment, I'll take a look at some specific strategies for incorporating contrarian wisdom in sports betting.
Money Management Can Boost Gamblers' Profit
Commentary by Joe Saumarez-Smith
April 18 (Bloomberg) -- One of the most important elements of successful gambling is managing your money effectively. I know a lot of excellent handicappers who are regularly close to broke because they don't know how to handle their cash sensibly.
Good money management has many parallels with trading in financial markets. The first rule is to separate your gambling cash from what you use for everyday living. You're not likely to make good decisions if you have to choose between paying rent and having $500 on a horse (or in shares of a subprime mortgage lender).
I suggest keeping a separate bank account for gambling and only dip into it at preset levels of profitability. Otherwise you could find yourself buying a new car with your winnings, only to have to sell it at a loss three weeks later to cover your wagering debts.
The second rule is to not risk too much of your bankroll on any one event. This is the mistake that most bettors make early in their career, particularly if they have a relatively small bankroll.
Let's say you are at college and you learn that your basketball team's players are in the hospital with food poisoning, six hours before tip off. The bookies haven't shifted their line on the game, suggesting they don't have access to the information you do. What percentage of your $1,000 bankroll should you risk? When I ask this question of novice bettors, the answer is usually somewhere between 40 percent and 100 percent.
While I agree that this is an exceptional circumstance, conventional bankroll management theories suggest you shouldn't risk more than 5 percent of your total bankroll.
Spreading Risk
The theory is similar to portfolio theory used in fund management, in that you should spread your risk across multiple investments to avoid being wiped out by a disaster in any one of them.
In this college hoops game, you do have information that gives you an edge over the bookies, but there are risks: the rival team could see it as more of a practice game and underperform, or your team's secondary players might take it as their big chance to shine.
There are different schools of thought about what percentage of your funds you should risk.
One of the most popular is having a level stake on every bet. So, if your bankroll is $10,000, you should always bet 1 percent of it, or $100 per event. You then adjust this up and down every $1,000, so if you get your bankroll up to $11,000 then you bet $110 per event and if it falls to $9,000 you bet $90 per event.
This is perhaps the most conservative bankroll management method and the reduction of your stake as you lose money means it takes longer to wipe out your cash, however unlucky you are.
Point Scale
I personally like something a little more aggressive, so I try to stick to a rule where I assess the strength of my bets on a scale of one to five. With a bankroll of $10,000 a one point bet would be 1 percent of the bankroll, or $100, and a five point bet would be 5 percent of the bankroll, or $500. I would rarely have a five-point bet and would expect to have a two-point bet perhaps twice a week.
Novice bettors tend to bet too often and have perhaps 20 bets a weekend. That means they would be risking a large percentage of their bankroll each week, probably too aggressive a model.
When I am having a bad streak I reduce my stakes still further. It is hard mentally to deal with a slump and human instinct is to bet bigger to recover the losses. Chasing your losses, whether in sports betting or in financial markets, can have disastrous consequences and a far wiser strategy is to take a break or restrict the amounts you are risking until you are back in your groove.
Mathematical Model
Another way to allocate your bets, used by mathematically inclined bettors, is the Kelly criterion. A complex formula specifies what percentage of your bankroll you should risk for any given event to maximize growth in the long run.
For details, I recommend William Poundstone's book, ``Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street.'' Or you can search the Internet for the original paper by Bell Laboratories physicist John Larry Kelly Jr. It has transformed some gamblers' lives.
If you gamble with any degree of seriousness and don't think about bankroll management then you are likely to be poorer for it. It won't make you a winning player but the discipline it instils increases your chances markedly.
A bettor’s guide to sports books
The considerations: Odds, amenities, creativity and you, the earnest gambler
By Jeff Haney
LAS VEGAS SUN
Sat, Aug 23, 2008
It might be fun to speculate about sports betting’s “wise guys,” about what they’re up to on any given football Sunday, about which teams they think will cover the spread, about how many piles of money they’re betting and where they’re betting them.
The truth is, though, I don’t particularly care about “wise guys” — a term that in this context means sophisticated professional sports gamblers rather than Harry the Hunchback & Co.
I certainly don’t care about their travails in getting money down in Las Vegas sports books.
If they’re wise guys, I figure they can fend for themselves.
I’m more concerned about sports betting’s little guys, whose average wager is in the two figures, the three figures or the low four figures. In gambling lingo, the latter two are known as “nickel” ($500) and “dime” ($1,000) bettors.
As long as we’re going to have legalized, state-regulated sports betting in Nevada, those bettors, the lifeblood of the business, deserve fair treatment in the sports books and an opportunity to make their wagers without being hassled by paranoid or inept casino personnel.
That’s why the treatment of customers, attractive betting lines and the ability to make a decent-size bet were three of the most significant factors in rating every sports book operation in Las Vegas on a scale of zero to three stars.
The depth of the betting menu and the variety of creative wagering propositions were also considered, with extra weight given to imaginative oddsmaking that rises above the quotidian.
Factors such as atmosphere, aesthetics, comfort, convenience, nearby amenities and intangibles also came into play.
The ratings, which roughly coincide with the start of the 2008 football season, are based on groups of sports books, not individual properties. (For example, the Bellagio and New York-New York are not rated separately, but are considered under the single entry “MGM Mirage.”)
Ratings are largely subjective, and your list will likely differ from mine.
3 stars (highest rating)
Las Vegas Hilton: The Hilton reigns as the pound-for-pound champ of sports books thanks in part to a top-notch team of oddsmakers behind the scenes and a professional, courteous staff working the betting windows. Attractions include the city’s best selection of Super Bowl betting propositions, early-bird NFL lines posted nearly two weeks before kickoff rather than the week of the game, and some of the most competitive future-book odds anywhere. A diversified betting menu features a tremendous selection of golf odds as well as lines on tennis, soccer and esoteric European sports. If you’re looking for it, it’s probably here. If every sports book were run like this, the phrase “Las Vegas: Gambling Capital of the World” would be more than an outdated banality.
Lucky’s sports book at the Plaza: The Plaza sports book would have received a top rating even if it had not recently been taken over by Lucky’s, a new operation that promises an aggressive approach to sports betting. Even before the change in management, bettors at the Plaza could find gambler-friendly odds, fair parlay cards, props on major horse races, and odds on obscure boxing matches.
The laid-back, retro appeal of the property’s upstairs sports lounge was enhanced by the presence of a small satellite betting window during football season.
Just a couple of weeks after the opening this summer, Lucky’s oddsmakers had already put up lines on every regular-season NFL game along with a lot of intriguing props related to the imminent football season — I do mean a lot. And as Isaac Davis said in “Manhattan,” a lot is my favorite number.
The Palms: A single-property, independent sports book operation like the Hilton, the Palms offers a rich variety of betting options and tight, bettor-friendly lines in every sport but pro basketball. It’s a required stop for future-book bettors, prop players and those looking for creative sports wagering opportunities. The resort’s great amenities don’t hurt, with superb restaurants and strong casino gambling steps away.
The possibilities are limited only by the silly prohibition on NBA and WNBA betting, a result of the Maloof family’s ownership of the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs as well as the Palms.
Note to league and state gaming officials: That’s me calling it silly (because it is), not the owners of the casino. They, wisely, have no desire to rock the boat.
South Point: Knowledgeable sports bettors are made to feel welcome here, rather than merely tolerated. The book offers all the little extras that appeal to avid sports bettors including plenty of overnight lines, a full menu of over/under bets including many that aren’t widely offered in Las Vegas, and generous betting limits. The sports book at the South Point is linked with the book at the El Cortez.
2 stars (good to very good)
Hard Rock: This is a physically small book hampered by 20-cent baseball lines, but it’s in a casino with a fantastic high-energy ambience — and they’ll take a bet. Not once has one of my wagers prompted a mini-conference among a bevy of empty suits, complete with the requisite dirty looks and muttering. I wish I could say the same about some of the lower-rated sports books. In fact, the Hard Rock earns high marks for epitomizing the ideal Las Vegas gambling experience: Sometimes, before completing the wagering transaction, the clerks will ask, “Don’t you want (to bet) any more?”
MGM Mirage (Bellagio, et al.): Yeah, yeah, their future-book odds, consistently among the worst in the city, are in desperate need of improvement. And I know, I know ... those 20-cent baseball lines. But these joints do, invariably, accept a wager without demanding my Social Security number and mother’s maiden name. (Again, the books further down on the list could take a lesson.) Like the other solid sports books in town, they’re well-versed in the art of taking a whack at the window first, adjusting the point spread second. And the amenities can’t be beat. Somehow it becomes easy to forget about 20-cent baseball lines when you order a complimentary glass of vodka from the cocktail server in the Bellagio’s sports book and she has two questions for you: Would Grey Goose be OK, sir? And, would you care for a double? Plus, I’ve been a sucker for those Ralph Lauren outfits since Day 1.
Station Casinos (Red Rock Resort, et al.): The locals-oriented chain offers several “destination books” for Las Vegas-area residents, including gems at Green Valley Ranch Station and Red Rock Resort. Besides covering the basics, they have emerged as the go-to book for motor sports wagering, a small but important part of the sports betting scene.
Stations also stands out by embracing ancillary events such as a popular football handicapping seminar. (Coincidentally, this year’s free two-day symposium starts today at Red Rock.)
Unlike less distinguished books, they take my bets without blinking. In fact, on more than a few occasions I’ve been walking out after placing a wager only to hear an announcement that the game I just bet has moved a half-point or a point. In other words, they practice a revolutionary concept called “good bookmaking.”
To become more of a one-stop shop — that is, to discourage me from leaving the friendly confines of Red Rock or GVR to head “into town” — I’d like to see a deeper wagering selection in some areas. For example, let’s have more college basketball totals on the board.
Venetian: This Strip joint consistently offers bettors an excellent value in its future books and goes beyond the ordinary with individual NFL player props and more mixed martial arts odds than just about anybody. It’s a well-appointed book and an enjoyable place to sweat your action. But please don’t hassle bettors to show room-key cards. That’s tacky and off-putting, like something you would expect to encounter at the Wynn sports book.
1 star (unexceptional)
Boyd/Coast (Gold Coast, et al.): Most of the sports and betting options are available, but like Major Major Major Major, they’re so mediocre that they stand out from the crowd.
They take action — eventually — but too often the scene plays out like this: After I verbally declare my wager, the clerk exhales loudly and disappears. He re-emerges from a back office with a person dressed in professional business attire. Not a word to me. The person dressed in professional business attire picks up a phone and talks to someone (not me) while occasionally glaring at me. After a while, I’m awarded my betting slip. Unfortunately, this kind of garbage exemplifies the reality, rather than the ideal, of the modern-day Las Vegas experience.
If an experience like that leaves you feeling dirty, you might want to stroll over to the blackjack tables to blow off a little steam. Forget about it. These sweat joints are the quickest in town to throw out gamblers who dare to display any brain-wave activity. Yes, there is some entertainment value in watching the pit bosses at these properties sprint across the floor to shove your chips out of the betting circle before the cards can be dealt ... although I’m pretty sure that’s an unintentional part of the entertainment lineup — a bonus, if you will. But when security follows you right off the property? Not so entertaining.
Cal Neva (multiple locations): At least at the Las Vegas locations, these books are frequently out to lunch — literally. They routinely close down for employee meal breaks, leaving would-be bettors and ticket-cashers stranded, in middle of the day, even when there’s a full slate of games on tap. This sort of behavior might have been acceptable in Las Vegas ... in about 1979. It still might fly at Cal Neva’s locations in the Northern Nevada dust bowls. Today in Las Vegas, which is ostensibly a real city, it indicates an operation that’s closer to bush league than big league.
Golden Nugget: In his book “Double or Nothing,” released this year, Tom Breitling revealed that when he and partner Tim Poster ran the Nugget they increased revenue in the sports book by 1,300 percent by opening up the betting limits. That brief shining moment is long gone.
Under their regime, I never encountered the maximum betting limit. I shouldn’t. I’m a small bettor, not even in the same universe as a wiseguy.
Yet under the current ownership, I constantly run into betting limits here. Not only do they fail to ask if I want more (a la the Hard Rock), but they usually inform me that they will, in fact, only accept less — whether I like it or not. It’s a sad state of affairs for anyone who cares about Las Vegas sports betting.
Leroy’s (multiple locations): Give Leroy’s credit for trying novel ventures such as the high-stakes “Money Talks” football handicapping invitational contest. Give them credit for appealing to sports gamblers by sponsoring a seven-nights-a-week sports betting radio show.
But can you think of anything more insulting to patrons than toke-hustling? Memo to clerks at Leroy’s downtown locations: If I wanted to be hustled for tips by sneering gaming-industry employees, I’d go play blackjack at Palace Station or Binion’s.
Planet Hollywood: The joint affectionately known as the Ho has a friendly, competent staff and some decent props. It’s an aesthetically attractive book and a fun place to watch games. It seems perfectly fine for tourists on the middle to south Strip, but it suffers in our ratings for one key reason: It’s so darn difficult to reach for Las Vegas locals, thanks to the least pleasant parking garage this side of Atlantic City. After parking, you have to walk about eight miles through a shopping mall — yes, a (shudder!) shopping mall — to reach the casino and sports book.
Rampart/Cannery: These two linked sports books at separate casinos offer a comfortable atmosphere while catering to local suburbanites in Summerlin and North Las Vegas.
Wynn Las Vegas: This book does some things well, but all too often after placing a wager I have left feeling like a lapsed Catholic who just barely managed to survive the Spanish Inquisition. After verbally stating my wager, I’ve been grilled at the betting counter about where I’m staying, whether I can present a room key, who exactly I think I am, etc.
Benefits include great horse racing propositions and easy access via the Strip’s best parking garage. A good poker room and one of the best buffets in the city are steps away.
The bottom line, though, is when you’re walking out of a sports book you should be thinking about the bets you just made, or how that evening’s games might turn out, or something along those lines. Not, “Geez, Torquemada had nothing on these guys.”
Zero stars (not recommended)
Harrah’s Entertainment (Harrah’s, et al.): This sports book voided bets even after the tickets had been printed and payment accepted because the supervisor said he “didn’t like the lines.” That’s a dishonest, unsavory business practice that has no place in Nevada (Sun, April 14, April 23). The phone number for complaints to the state Gaming Control Board is 486-2000. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
Jerry’s Nugget: I’ve known some bettors who have sought this place out for favorable odds on teasers, but I’ll never forget the day they restricted me to $100 maximum bets.
Poker Palace: An extremely low-limit locals joint. We do mean locals. If you’re a tourist and you end up here, you’re probably very, very lost. And we do mean low. I was once limited to a maximum of $80 on a bet. (Don’t ask — at least not if you’re looking for a logically coherent answer.) I shrugged and made it anyway. I lost.
Terrible’s: Oddly, this grind joint advertises in print and on TV as if it were a legitimate casino. I haven’t been able to take it remotely seriously, however, since the time they restricted me to maximum wagers of $200. Since then, I’ve considered it essentially a pretend sports book that deals only in chump change. Or only to chumps.
Penalty box (incomplete)
Stratosphere/Arizona Charlie’s: Typically, any half-decent sports book will pay out on a winning betting ticket that has passed its expiration date, except under extraordinary circumstances. In a May 16 column we detailed a shameful episode in which the Stratosphere declined to honor a recently expired ticket and instead tried to stiff the customer. The sports book eventually did the right thing and paid off in full (good) ... but only after our article appeared (bad). Take a seat next to Dave “the Hammer” Schultz until next year.
