 |
 |
|
|
|
|
FEATURES
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
COLUMNS |
|
|
|
 | Hot Bets
Tips from our SportsBook expert
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 | Secrets of a Vegas SportsBooker
|
How is the line created before it goes up on the board?
We have outside consultants like Las Vegas Sports Consultants. Because we're not the first odds on the board, we can see what the Stardust and the Caribbean books are doing. But for bigger events, we don't use consultants at all. For the Super Bowl, for instance, I call my colleagues, and we set our lines ourselves. We don't need handicappers when the bets are decided by the public--the lines move as the money comes in.
How do you make the distinction between casual bettors and the pros?
The philosophy you try to hold to is "booking the face." We recognize the same people who are here all the time, so you move lines aggressively depending on how those people bet. Essentially, we use the professional players to get us to the best possible line. Say a professional drops a $30,000 bet; we may drop the line by half a point. The same isn't necessarily true for the guy who's just in town for a weekend. He may drop 200 grand, but it won't change the line.
Setting sports odds isn't really about the quality of the match-ups, is it? It's about public perception.
Sometimes a supervisor will take a look at the odds and tell me, "God, I thought the Lakers were the better team" and I'll tell him, "Well, I don't care what you think. Go bet them yourself."
So it's not even about how many people are betting. It's about where the money is.
It's more than that--it's where the right money is. If we have a legitimate point spread, we'll go ahead and book that. After that, whoever we take bets from, wherever the money comes from or goes, we have a 50-50 chance of winning, and we still get a 4.5 percent commission.
Can't a professional player fool you? I mean, what's to stop him from getting Joe Schmo from Milwaukee to drop a chunk of cash on a game?
My philosophy is a lot like that saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." We have to pay attention to the regular bettors, the hardcore guys. Obviously, you can't take 20,000 bucks on a small-time college basketball game because the public can't and won't match that. It's possible for the pros to take us for a big wad of cash.
If public perception is important, how big a role does geography play for you guys? I mean, you get a lot of people in Vegas who come from California and want to bet on California teams.
Exactly. When they come to Vegas from L.A. or the Bay Area, Raiders fans are going to take the Raiders. That affects the line. We also have to take into account "public" teams. Green Bay always attracts a lot of money in football. That's already built into the line beforehand. We know that when Green Bay plays at home, we're going to get a ton of money on Green Bay.
|
"If we go away, they think there will be nobody to fix games. But the fixes will never go away."
|
|
|
|
But here's where the professionals do the public a service. We would make Green Bay a 10-point favorite if we could because the public will bet on Green Bay pretty much whatever the point spread is. But the professionals would know that 10 points is way too high, so to keep the professionals playing, to keep their big money in play, we have to set the line at 7.
What we definitely don't want to do is have the professionals and the public both betting heavily on the favorites because then we're really buried. Let's say we make Green Bay a 4-point favorite when they should have been 7-point favorites. That would mean the casino players are on them, the professionals are on them, the wise-guys are on them. Then we're just crushed.
What do you make the competition you're getting from internet books?
Obviously, they're going to be prevalent because they're not regulated and they're dealing with every state and country. We're bound by laws--you have to be present in our book here in Vegas, you have to be 21 years old, so our market is strictly locals and tourists who are coming into our SportsBook. We would never compete with the internet books, and we won't even try.
What I think the proliferation of offshore casinos and sportsbook should tell the government is that people are going to bet sports no matter what. My personal opinion--and not speaking as a representative of the MGM/Mirage--is that this is something that should be legalized and regulated through the United States, not something that should be allowed to go offshore where it's untaxed and unregulated.
It's not really about sports. It's a matter of pure economics--it's supply-and-demand. You'd think politicians would be smart enough to understand that. It cracks me up. You can wager money on a commodity, lose a million on cattle prices or orange juice or whatever. That's all perfectly legal. The biggest gamblers in the world are in that area.
| |
|
|
|
