Written by Adam Burke

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My feelings on the  final descent to the massive runways at McCarran Airport were probably similar to a child’s reaction when the castle at Disney’s Magic Kingdom comes in to view. You have heard dramatic retellings of Las Vegas trips by friends, family, or that coworker that you only pretend to like because being insincere to yourself is better than being the resident a-hole of the office. However, no words, pictures, or hyperbole can truly prepare you for the first time that capitalism’s Aurora borealis springs up from the dark desert floor.

My Frontier Airlines flight on January 30 made that landing. My trip was for business, becoming a certified blackjack dealer because it was literally cheaper to fly to Vegas, stay for nine nights, and eat, gamble, and fulfill my wish to go to Vegas while of legal age, than paying for it at the dealing school just fifteen minutes from my house. Fortunately, my flight left before Al Gore’s antithesis fell from the sky, so I had no delays, which was convenient for my first flight since January 2007.

The Akron-Canton to Denver flight was uneventful, save for the screaming kid two rows back that I secretly hoped would be shoved into the cargo bay. At least the overhead bin might have muffled the sound. I could have dealt with that.

 

Far more enjoyable was the flight from Denver to Las Vegas. A gentleman from Madison, WI was on my flight, heading back home to go back to work. After ignoring my angst toward his Wisconsin Badgers hoodie, we talked Big Ten sports for the one hundred minute flight. His mantra was “run the ball”, referencing Bret Bielema’s coaching shortcomings in the Rose Bowl. I don’t mean that he would say it only when talking about the game. I am fairly certain that he says it after every sentence. If he were a doctor, the appointment would go something like this:
Patient: Doctor, this itching and burning is getting difficult to deal with. What do you suggest?
Badger: Run the ball.
Patient: What does that have to do with this wart?
Badger: Run the ball.
Patient: I don’t understand.
Badger: RUN THE F*CKING BALL, BRET.
Patient: My name is Steve.

At least his girlfriend must be a fan when he runs between the tackles.

Then, the tremendously convenient distraction I needed appeared 4,000 feet below. Out of the desolate landscape appeared an acid trip of illumination. I had an impression of Vegas in my mind when I left Cleveland. I thought I knew what to expect. The expression “Everything you think you know is wrong” was proven to be accurate.

I was last in Las Vegas at the age of 11, just before my 12^th birthday. I only know this because Bellagio was opening the week after we flew home.  My sister was a Continental Airlines employee and so my parents flew free and I flew at a substantial discount. Somehow, I think that attributed to my present-day gambling addiction. I do not really remember much past Circus Circus and the Midway upstairs, other than going to Sam’s Town with my grandfather and now-leveled establishments like Westward Ho and Stardust.

Boarding a shuttle to the Strip, because I did my homework prior to my trip (and I suggest you do the same because it can save you money), led to my first taste of the Vegas nightlife. There’s something ironic, yet expected, about a Las Vegas Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville blaring 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” at 11:30 local time on a Sunday night. The sheer enormity of the properties surrounding my relatively miniscule destination, Imperial Palace, was a bit of a shock. Last time I was in Las Vegas, MGM was the class of the Strip. Now, monstrosities like Venetian, Palazzo, and Paris touch the clouds.

Despite my travels, I did what any sane, excited person would do, I went exploring. Nevermind the fact that it was 3:30 am back home, where my fiancée was wrapped snug in her bed, I was on a mission. That mission? To see what the new Vegas was all about by going to the most recognizable hotel and casino on the Strip.

Bellagio was booming. You would have thought they were giving something away. In essence, they were. They were giving the chance to escape the drudgery of normal life. Girls pranced around in eight inch heels with dresses that would have shown a tampon string. Their stereotypically douchey-looking companions were fabricating an image right along with the rest of the eager hopefuls to enter The Bank nightclub. As I sit here and type this, I still wonder what percentage of these women were escorts. Fifteen dollar table minimums and more languages than Rosetta Stone provided everything but familiarity.

Completely overwhelmed by jetlag, the new Vegas which I clearly had not accounted for and a stomach rumbling caused by the fact that airlines no longer consider their absurdly high fares to be worthy of a damn bag of peanuts, I wandered to the McDonalds adjacent to Harrah’s, pounded a McDouble, and retreated to my room.

A brief public service announcement: While the overriding sentiment about Vegas is that your accommodations are largely irrelevant because you “won’t spend much time in the room anyway”, do yourself a favor and stay in a decent place. Imperial Palace was free for me through my player’s card for Harrah’s casinos all over North America. As far as I’m concerned, IP should be free for anyone who dares to stay there. I was welcomed with a rundown gaming floor that looked more like an illegal underground casino in Chinatown than something Las Vegas had to offer. My room came complete with a busted toilet seat, a shower head with less water pressure than an un-pumped Super Soaker, light switches that must have turned on garbage disposals in nearby Henderson, and a TV that was maybe an inch bigger than the one in the seat back in front of me on my Denver flight. But, I got free entertainment thanks to the “In-House” channel, which explained how to play the table games using a woman doing impersonations. Fran Drescher was helpful at the Pai Gow table. So, too, was Judge Judy at Let It Ride. All that was missing was Sally Jesse Raphael teaching me baccarat. Instead, that distinction went to Joan Rivers.

The next day, the gaming school I was attending opened at 9 am. Since I was budgeting myself, and therefore too cheap to pay for wireless internet at Imperial Palace, though it was probably for the best considering 56k wireless was the height of the hotel’s technological advances, I made the mistake of wondering, “How far could it be?”

One hour and ten minutes and a Starbucks appearance to steal WiFi later, I found myself walking directly through a microcosm of Las Vegas. On one side, low income apartments, most of them featuring a cacophony of domestic disputes, crying children, beaten-down twenty-somethings smoking cigarettes in between bowls, and 1987 Toyota Corollas missing two wheel covers, but featuring dice hanging from the mirror. On the other side, the Las Vegas Country Club Estates, barricaded by a stone wall and metal bars at the top.

Rather than bore the readers with tales of my dealing education, let’s just leave it at the fact that I found the monorail the next day and used taxi rides from the monorail’s closest stop to the gaming school. What the gaming school did give me, however, outside of a certification to deal blackjack, was perspective from the locals. Many of the school’s students were transplants to the area, but had been there for years. They were remarkably laid back about the influx of tourists week in and week out because they simply avoided them. They frequented downtown casinos or worked downtown as bartenders or entertainers.

I felt comfortable with the gaming school crowd because, at the end of the day, they were trying to make an honest living in a city that is anything but honest. There’s almost a brethren among these residents. While class divides probably exist, there is a strong sense of blue collar ideals. Even the wealthier individuals have or continue to grind it out by gambling, owning property, or simply trying to keep on top of things in a place where fortunes can change in an instant.

Fast forward to Wednesday. A few months back, I happened to click on a Twitter link to Chad Millman’s “Behind the Bets” podcast. His guest was Bryan Leonard. Bryan Leonard is somebody who is referred to in the sports betting industry as a "sharp" or "wiseguy". Sharps are called such because they are very good at their craft. The public are referred to as "squares". I'm sure you can figure that out. Leonard sells his picks to subscribers through his website footballwinners.com. His picks have been featured on other websites and, though his wife is employed, a large chunk of his family income comes via selling picks through his service and making them. His self-described workday regiment sounding ideal to me. He begins offering picks over the phone in the early morning hours for the east coast crowd. Then he makes his bets mid-afternoon, especially if he is waiting to see what the public is going to do to the betting line, and spends the rest of his night with his wife, rarely sitting down and watching the games he's bet. Contrary to this, I eagerly watch the games I bet on TV or via online box score. Years of experience with betting games relaxes a bettor and I have not yet reached that point.

After hearing Mr. Leonard reference Cleveland and our woeful sports teams a handful of times, I did some more research on him. Finding out he was originally from Cleveland, I shot him an email with no real expectations. To my surprise, my inquiries were answered. He was an Akron grad like me. We exchanged a few emails and when I told him I was coming to Vegas, he agreed to meet up with me if he could find the time. Well, even with Super Bowl week, he found the time. We met up at the Hilton Superbook and looked over the 25-page packet of proposition bets.

Bryan gave me several nuggets of sports handicapping knowledge. He introduced me to his buddy Leon who supports himself solely on sports wagers. Teddy “Covers” Sevransky, of covers.com, shook my hand and welcomed me to the city. We discussed what we thought would happen in the game and Bryan, Leon, and Teddy compared the prices of the props at different books around town. One of the beauties of sports betting in the present-day is the internet. Updated lines are constantly available, whether you are looking at offshore (online) sportsbooks or the ones in Vegas themselves. “Shopping around”, as it’s called, is one of the chief elements to being a successful handicapper. It takes a solid bankroll and a network of friends to be most profitable, but it was one of the biggest lessons I learned. Little differences like minus-105 vigorish or a half-point line movement can make a huge difference.

By Friday, I had a strong grasp of the rules, regulations, and procedures of dealing blackjack and began to focus my energies on the mob-like atmosphere on the southern end of Las Vegas Blvd. Sidewalks looked like moshpits and the public transportation, both the monorail and “The Deuce”, the city bus, were crammed like a college experiment of fitting people into a phone booth. My father was supposed to fly in on Friday night, but his flight was delayed until Saturday morning.

My Friday also consisted of leaving the un-guest-friendly confines of Imperial Palace and heading to one of the oldest properties remaining on the Strip. I have tremendous memories of Circus Circus from trips with my late sister, my nephew, my parents and siblings. The casino floor itself and the upstairs Midway for kids had not changed a bit. Despite the faded paint covering the exterior, some money had been poured in to the rooms and they were a breath of fresh air compared to IP.

Naturally, as with any good hotel stay in a tourist destination full of fantasy and excitement, I got a Bose surround sound audio picture of the couple in the room next to me bumping uglies just ten or fifteen minutes after I checked in to the room. My guess is that I avoided this uncomfortable scenario at Imperial Palace due to fear of the bed collapsing like Scott Norwood in the Super Bowl. Either that or nobody was in the adjacent rooms.

I pondered putting my ear to the wall and awaiting the end of this rendezvous so that I could begin a slow clap at the end, but there was no telling if the act was worthy of a slow clap. It could have been worthy of a raucous wall-pounding and sliding a gold star sticker under the door. Rather than make this decision, I went across the street to Crazy Leroy’s Sports Book to scan the atmosphere and check out the line movements.

The Strip might as well be broken down in two different streets. The south end of the Strip begins at Mandalay Bay and ends at Wynn Resort. Wynn is probably closer to the midpoint, but after Wynn’s accompanying property, Encore, there is nothing for a good half mile between Encore and the Riviera. The southern end is a booming metropolis of young and old, classy and crude, and features a handful of the world’s largest hotels by room count. The casinos are newer, adorned with the priciest of fixtures and bright, colorful lobbies.

The North end, with Riviera and Circus Circus across from each other, Sahara and Stratosphere further up, and Slots A’ Fun Casino nestled between McDonalds and Circus Circus, is only attended by guests staying at one of those casinos. The bus stops from Encore to downtown are bare. Even the Hispanics who cannot speak English while they unsuccessfully hand out escort catalogs ($69 specials all over the place!) do not bother down on this end.

Up to this point, I had surveyed the books at Bellagio, Bally’s, Mirage, MGM Grand, and Caesars Palace. Mirage and Bally’s were the most approachable. Bellagio was divided in to a series of cubicle-like tables with a TV screen in front of each. The big board was to the right, and, like several of the Vegas sports books, the book was right next to the poker room. Each book was complete with a bar of its own, with video poker encased in the counter. The long tables at Bellagio were divided in single-person sections. Several places had TVs at each station to go along with the large TVs.

Crazy Leroy’s was more my type of place. There were eight TVs with heavily padded reclining leather chairs arranged in front of them and the big board was a series of TVs behind the betting counter. Where the more expensive properties catered to the professionals and the big bettors, Leroy’s was a glorified sports bar. As with most Friday nights for me, due to the fact that I rarely bet on the Sybil-like motivations on display in the NBA, there was not much to bet. I could have bet on the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, but the time difference thwarted those plans.

Saturday flew by with my father in town to spend the weekend. About the only interesting development was playing a video Mississippi Stud game with a former USC football player and Denver Broncos practice squad participant. An affable large black man, content to sit at the $1 ante machine for as long as his hundred dollars would let him. He informed me that Jim Plunkett was in the Riviera. “You mean someone in a Jim Plunkett jersey?” I asked. “No,” he answered. “Actual Jim Plunkett. He was a little drunk, though.” I laughed about the Ben Roethlisberger piano bar scandal and the large man laughed and said "I could tell you some stories about why the Broncos lost a couple Super Bowls." I did not ask him to elaborate, though, in hindsight, I regret that decision.

 

Sunday was the day I was waiting for. Being very interested in sports betting, following blogs, hosting a podcast here on TCF for betting during football season, and being the only person I know who actually wagers on Ivy League and Southland conference college hoops, I was eager to see what the atmosphere would be like in the sports book.

I went to Bellagio first. Bellagio was relatively quiet. The chairs on the far end of the book had already been secured for the day. The tables were empty, but old timers were spread about the book yelling at fillies on the track. Other guys, who obviously do not do much sports betting were bragging about their $300 on the Packers. This was not the atmosphere I was looking for, even though I was not sure what to expect at 11 am local time.

My next guess was to check out Bally’s. Bally’s sportsbook was far off the gaming floor, close to the monorail platform and across from a Sbarro. Bally’s also had long tables segmented off for individual TV viewing, but the outside area of the book was bordered by simple folding tables and cheap plastic chairs. Getting closer, I thought, picking up a three-page sheet, front and back, of the odds from the morning. I texted back and forth with Mr. Leonard a couple more times, with him sounding excited to get Pittsburgh at plus-3 instead of the plus-2.5 they were everywhere else.

I felt bad for my father who was just along for the ride, just wanting to sit down somewhere so he could watch the game. But this was not the place I had in mind either. It was more laid back and a bit more crowded than the Bellagio, but it just seemed like a busy Saturday of college hoops. Not the day when the Super Bowl was being played.

The Hilton sportsbook is known as the Superbook, with good reason. The place is enormous, with 140 degrees of TV viewing (I counted 31 in all). There are a couple of big boards, one of which was scrolling through the prop bets. The packet at the Hilton with the Super Bowl bets was 25 pages long. When I arrived at the Hilton, about three-and-a-half hours before the game, the line to the betting counter met me before I entered the book. Not an exact count, but I would say there were no less than 150 people in line. Weaving through the bystanders was like navigating a corn maze. Jerseys of every team and some with vintage players on the back dotted the seating area and the bar. I finally saw my first Browns jersey, though it was only the colors and had no names or numbers.

A documentary was being filmed, interviewing the groups convening around the tall tables. I stood up on a slot machine stool and marveled at the gathering like an art history major looking up in the Sistine Chapel. The place was alive with chatter and smack talk between fans of the participating teams. My father decided his course of action would be to sit at a penny machine and play periodically just to commandeer a seat over the time remaining until the game and then the four hours of the Super Bowl. This strategy actually worked out well and led to only small monetary losses.

Fans of both teams gave raucous ovations when they came out of the tunnel. I had three bets. One was an emotional hedge, taking the Pittsburgh Steelers moneyline at plus-125. Why bet the Steelers when I hate them? It’s simple really. They win, I win my bet. They lose, I win because I hate them. My other two wagers were prop bets. One was shortest field goal under 25.5 yards and the other was Clay Matthews over 4.5 tackles + assists. In hindsight, the Matthews bet was ill-advised and there was a reason that the over was going off at plus-150. He rushed the passer the entire game. Due to Pittsburgh being behind early, their running game was non-existent and so Matthews never had a chance to make a tackle.

Either way, I was there for the experience. It did not disappoint. On Christina Aguilera’s first note, cell phones exploded out of pockets and the stopwatch feature was activated. I was surprised at the decibel level of the cheers for her at the end, given that she butchered it. Even without messing up the lyrics, she butchered it.

Loud cheers erupted on the coin toss result of heads. You would have thought that someone already scored a touchdown. That trend continued on every third down stop. Jordy Nelson’s TD catch set off an audible earthquake. The betting crowd was decidedly Packer heavy. The pick 6 by Nick Collins may have shifted a tectonic plate. Steelers fans muttered obscenities on their way to the bathroom. On my end, it was gratifying to watch Roethlisberger eat a nice big shatberger in the first half. I thought of all the piss yellow number 7’s on the backs of people around the country and wished I could laugh in their collective faces. Of course, then I thought back to our 1964 championship and the fun idea melted from my mind.

At halftime, my three bets looked pretty grim. Matthews had one tackle. The Steelers, despite their late score, are not built to come from behind. Aaron Rodgers probably was not going to be stopped in the red zone and a Green Bay TD would make a Pittsburgh field goal largely irrelevant. Pondering my situation was a good alternative to watching Fergie take a classic Guns N Roses song and chop it up like a lamb shank. I hit the penny machine I was sitting at for $59 during halftime, so my second half seat was locked in. A $59 return on a 25-cent bet. Why can’t it all be that easy?

The Steelers opened as a 1.5-point favorite to win the second half. The number jumped to three as fast as it was posted. The in-game wagering had Pittsburgh plus-12.5 for the game’s final. There was a major disconnect there. If the Steelers covered the second half, they would have lost by nine (eight with the quick adjustment). Therefore, they would win both bets easily. It was a great middle opportunity for bettors with Green Bay. They could win both bets without any trouble to their Packers minus-2.5. I, stupidly, thought that the line would be too long to take the plus-12.5, which would be an easy winner. I would have gone out of my comfort zone to bet that line. No way was this game going to be a rout.

My moneyline bet got life in the second half. So, too, did the black and gold clad fans in the sportsbook. After the first of Green Bay’s three three-and-outs of the third quarter, Pittsburgh marched down the field on Tim Masthay’s shanked punt to make it a four point game. Clay Matthews finally made a play in the fourth quarter to strip Rashard Mendenhall and return the Packers to their 11-point lead. Unfortunately, forced fumbles do not count as tackles. The Packers scored 21 points off Steeler turnovers.

In the fourth quarter, I hit my shortest field goal prop with just over two minutes left to play. At least I was not going empty-handed out of the Hilton Superbook. I thought back to Bryan Leonard’s plays for the day. He had the over on Aaron Rodgers rush yards of 19.5. He had minus-2. We both had the over, as a lot of people did, on Heath Miller’s receptions of 3.5. He had four targets, but only two receptions. Bryan also had over-3 on total sacks. That one hit. We were both on Pittsburgh, though he took the points and worth have pushed without the late Crosby field goal or Suisham hitting the 52-yarder. Some days are good, some are bad. It’s the nature of the business.

On the Roethlisberger TD pass, an intoxicated bettor walked by, patted a stranger on the back and yelled “Wooo! At least, we got the over!” While one man walked diagonally to the bathroom, the other looked at me and said, “I don’t know who we are, but we got it.” Green Bay broke up Pittsburgh's last ditch effort on fourth down and the room became animated with a series of cheers and obscenities. As it turns out, the obscenities may have been from Hilton book boss Jay Kornegay. His book was one of the day's losers.  As I was walking back to the monorail station, the line was already filling up to cash winning tickets.

Since it was only 7 pm in Las Vegas, and I wanted to see the Rio before I left town, we hopped the monorail to Bally’s and took a free shuttle to Rio. Seeing all the dejected Steeler fans felt vindicating. The Packer fans, while obviously upbeat, were reserved, not saying much and accepting their win with grace.

My Tuesday morning flight left at 7 am. I was happy to get out of there. Vegas wears you down, even without drinking and gambling all week long. The constant movement and the time difference take the biggest toll.

Having a chance to actually sit down and examine the week that was is almost like psychoanalyzing. The place has so many levels to it. From the interesting people and the lavishness, and everything in between, Las Vegas is a destination that absolutely must be experienced firsthand. No two experiences are the same, especially during Super Bowl week. People who could not care less about the game attend the shows that night. People who do care line up at any of the 183 sportsbooks in Las Vegas.

In the end, nearly $87.5 million was wagered on the game in Las Vegas. The sportsbooks, all 183 of them combined, secured a profit of $724,000. Some books lost money. It was a prop nightmare for the sportsbooks, with the squares coming in and betting “Yes” for a defensive/special teams TD and “Yes” on a two-point conversion. Hines Ward went off at plus-175 to score a TD. Many people on Green Bay also took Aaron Rodgers for MVP at 5/2.

I love betting on sports. To me, it’s like spending $10 to go to the movies. I put money on a game I normally would not care about and it keeps me entertained. It gives me a chance to challenge myself. The beauty of it is that you can learn something on every wager. You learn how to interpret trends, break down matchups, and try to put yourself in a player’s head. This is especially true when betting on young twenty-something year old kids in college. I have the luxury of doing it as a hobby. If I put a three-unit bet on a team, I’m at the edge of my seat. I can only imagine guys like Leon or Bryan Leonard. People like Bryan Leonard are under more pressure because he sells his picks with his sports service. So, he basically has double the money on every play. He plays his games at the book and then needs them to be right to keep subscribers. That is why, over the course of a season, being right 54% of the time is a good year. With the juice, 52.38% is the break-even point if you wager the same amount on each game.

With this, I leave you one final nugget from my Super Bowl week in Las Vegas:

Run the ball.