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LAS VEGAS — Gamblers have a saying: "The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing." Just ask Bob Scucci, race and sports book manager for the Stardust resort and casino. Sports bettors wagered $2.1 billion in Nevada's licensed sports books in 2004. By Bob Riha Jr., USA TODAY
If there's one person responsible for the betting lines during the 2005 NFL season that kicks off tonight, it's the 41-year-old Scucci. Around 5:30 p.m. PT every Sunday, Scucci is the first legalized bookmaker to post the "Las Vegas Line" — point spreads for the next week's NFL games followed by legal and illegal bookies around the country.
Those opening lines spread at Internet speed to other major sports books in Nevada; online "offshore" books in the Caribbean, Canada and Europe; TV and newspapers and finally amateur bettors playing football pools.
Millions of bettors "hammer out," or adjust, those starting point spreads. But it's Scucci who analyzes the collective wisdom of oddsmakers such as Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) and puts the first numbers up to bet.
It's Scucci whose benchmark lines help determine winners and losers from the estimated $40 million in football betting every fall weekend in Nevada and another $2 billion to $5 billion in illegal football betting around the country. It's Scucci who helps set the tone for the High Holy Day of sports betting: Super Bowl Sunday, when an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion in legal and illegal wagers changes hands. (Related item: Chat with Danny Sheridan, Thursday 3 p.m. ET)
"We know it carries a great deal of responsibility. It's not something we take lightly," says Scucci at the 47-year old hotel that inspired the Robert De Niro film Casino.
So goes the parallel world of sports betting in Sin City, where "wise guys" or professional bettors battle "bookies" for supremacy. And everybody makes money off "squares," the derogatory term for amateur bettors Vegas types use only privately for fear of offending customers. In this parallel universe, real-life victories and losses on the football field mean nothing.
It's all about the betting lines, those talismanic, seductive numbers that are ubiquitous in the sports world. Most newspapers print them (including USA TODAY, which publishes lines supplied by sports analyst Danny Sheridan). Thousands of hands labor to create them. But line-making is as much an art as a science. An industry in itself.
An oddsmaker's objective with a betting line is not to mystically predict winners or losers or final scores. It's to "divide the public," says Kenny White, the 42-year old co-owner of LVSC. That is, to make bettors greedy enough or angry enough to bet.
"It's not rocket science, and it's not voodoo. But it's a little of both," says Michael "Roxy" Roxborough, the 54-year old handicapper who founded LVSC in 1982 before selling it in '99 and retiring to Thailand.
Sports betting is illegal in the USA except for two states: Nevada; and Oregon, where consumers bet on sports through a state-run lottery. But everybody seems to be doing it: celebrities, Wall Streeters, college kids, housewives.
Sports wagering is a "corrosive" vice that leads to addiction, corruption and bankruptcy, charges Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "It's a Molotov cocktail: money, greed and gambling."
Roughly seven out of 10 U.S. adults gamble at least once a year, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. Roughly 6 million to 8 million qualify as problem gamblers, says the council's director, Keith Whyte. Sports betting addicts account for almost half the callers to 888-LASTBET, says Arnie Wexler, a recovering compulsive gambler who runs the help line.
Sports betting has become a "silent addiction" for many college and even high school kids, warns Wexler. An NCAA study of 21,000 students two years ago found 35% of male college students and 10% of female students had bet on sports the previous year.
Roughly 21% of 11th-graders reported they had gambled on sports in the previous year, according to Gambling with Delaware's Kids, a study by the University of Delaware's Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies in 2003.
Dangerous or not, plenty of consumers who live by the credo of Paul Newman's pool hustler in The Color of Money: "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
Birth of a betting line
Sports betting glossary LAS VEGAS — Sports betting has its own colorful language. Here's an insider's guide to key terms and phrases:Point spread: Betting line fixed by oddsmakers between the "favorite" team and the "underdog" to even out the money bet on both teams in a game. Favorites must "cover," or exceed, the point spread to win. Underdogs win by either winning the game or losing by fewer points than the spread. Bettors on of the underdog "take" the points; while bettors on of the favorite "give" or "lay" the points.Action: Betting.Futures: Bets that allow gamblers to bet on future games or events. Want to bet on winner of the 2006 Super Bowl? You can already do it in Las Vegas where the Patriots are 9-2 to repeat. It also allows you to bet on how many games a team will win in a season.Money lines: Bets on the straight-up outcomes of the games with no point spread. Odds are given where the favorites will pay less than double your bet and underdogs would pay more than double.Handle: Total amount of bets taken.The book or the house: Sports betting operation.Offshore: Online sports betting operations based in the Caribbean, Canada or United Kingdom.Wise guys: Professional gamblers.Squares: The vast majority of amateur bettors.Degenerate: Compulsive gambler.Flea: Annoying $2 bettor.Over/under: Betting that the combined number of points scored will be over or under a total set by the book.Vigorish, Vig or Juice: Commission charged by sports books. Bettors typically have to put up 10% of their bet to play, or $110 to win $100. Winners get that money back. Losers don't.Push: A tie. Bettors get their money back when a game ends on the exact point spread.Puppy: UnderdogPick'em: Game with no favorite or underdogParlay: A bet on two or more games where all the bets have to be successful.Prop: A more exotic bet. Such as which player will score first touchdown in a game.Off the board: Games where no bets are taken.Hooks: Half-points in betting lines.Hammer out or flatten out: Adjusting point spreads according to betting trends.Large or dime: $1,000. A Dollar is $100.Beef: A dispute or argument.
— Michael McCarthy Most sports wagering is done through "point spread" betting. Oddsmakers install what they believe to be the stronger team as the "favorite" (indicated by a minus sign) and the weaker team as the "underdog" (plus sign) in the betting line.
The two teams have those points added and subtracted to their actual scores to determine betting. Favorites that win the game by more points than the betting line "cover" the spread. Favorites that lose the game, win by fewer points or win by the same number of points don't. Bettors taking the favorite are said to "give" or "lay" the points. Bettors on the underdog "take" the points. Games with no favorites are "pick 'ems." (Related item: Sports betting history)
Take Super Bowl XXXIX between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. Oddsmakers made the Patriots seven-point favorites over the Eagles. That touchdown difference was the point spread.
When the Patriots won 24-21, New England bettors lost and Philadelphia bettors won. Why? Because the Patriots won by three points and didn't cover the spread.
The sports books usually make money off the "vigorish," or commission, they charge losing bettors. Sports bettors typically have to put up 10% of their bet to play — $110 to bet $100. If they win, they get back the $10 fee, their $100 bet and $100 in winnings for a total of $210. If they lose, they lose the $10 commission plus their $100 bet for a total loss of $110.
The book's 4.5% cut of the $220 in combined "action," or betting, on either "side" of the line is the "vig" or "juice." The built-in house advantage means players have to win 53% of their bets to break even, 54% to make money, according to Scucci. That's a tough task whether a bettor is a professional "sharp" or a "flea," an annoying amateur who demands the world for his $2 bet.
Contrary to popular belief, bookmakers don't want to hit the exact number. That produces a "push," or tie, with most bettors getting their money back. That's why bookmakers use so many "hooks," or half-points, in football lines.
Bookmakers here still wince when they talk about so-called "Black Sunday," otherwise known as Super Bowl XIII between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys in 1979. The week before the game, Pittsburgh was installed as the four-point favorite. The line fluctuated between 31/2 and 41/2 before finally settling at four.
Pittsburgh beat Dallas 35-31. And every sports book in Vegas took the hit.
Lords of the lines
The lines originate here in Las Vegas. But the people making them might surprise you. Say goodbye to Bugsy Siegel and cigar-smoking mobsters. This is the new, corporate Las Vegas. The oddsmakers, handicappers and bookmakers are math whizzes, numbers geeks and sports fanatics. They use "power ratings," computer analysis and spread sheets to handicap games.
Scucci graduated from Southern California with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1986. The quiet bachelor who grew up around race tracks has handicapped games since his teens.
There's Robert Walker, the former sports reporter for the Las Vegas Sun turned race and sports book director for The Mirage. Walker has become the most powerful bookmaker in town, setting the lines for eight mega-resorts on the Strip, such as Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand.
LVSC's White, a former minor leaguer in the San Francisco Giants system, is a family man who coaches Little League and high school baseball teams in his spare time.
"Everybody who comes in asks, 'Where's the smoke?' " jokes White at his cinder-block office overlooking the Strip. "But we're all non-smokers. And we love sports."
The betting bottom line
Sports betting has become big business. Gamblers bet $2.1 billion in Nevada's 174 licensed sports books in 2004, with the books netting a profit of $112.5 million, according to Frank Streshley, senior analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The 11.8% increase in the "handle," or total wagers, was the first boost in five years.
Nevada's $2 billion handle is a "drop in the bucket," says Sheridan, compared to the sports betting wagered illegally through offshore Internet sites, mob bookies, casual NFL and NCAA "March Madness" pools and fantasy sport leagues.
Most of those billions flow through thousands of online sports books offering what Sheridan calls "credit-card betting." Gamblers can open an account with an Internet sports book and bet from the privacy of their home or office. All they need is a phone or computer.
Streshley, after consulting with the FBI, estimates Nevada's handle at just 2% of sports betting for a total of $100 billion. Sheridan puts the figure much higher: $250 billion to $300 billion. That's almost as much as the U.S. defense budget and more than the gross domestic product of Switzerland in 2004.
"Politicians think Vegas is the sports betting capital of the world. It's not. It's Costa Rica, where most of the offshore books are," says gambling author Stephen Nover.
As in the real sports world, football is No. 1. Pro and college football generated $969 million in betting in 2004, or 46.5% of the handle in Nevada. Pro and college basketball ranked No. 2 at $543 million (26.1%). Baseball was third at $427 million (20.5%).
The U.S. Department of Justice takes the position that anyone engaged in online gambling is breaking federal law. But enforcement is tricky due to the books' foreign locations.
"To my knowledge we've never prosecuted an individual bettor, although we've prosecuted some businesses," department spokeswoman Jaclyn Lesch says.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman counters his city is good for sports because it keeps things honest.
"All pro sports, as well as the NCAA, should thank God every day we have sports betting here," says the 66-year old former defense attorney for Meyer Lansky who played himself as a mob lawyer in Casino. "We have the only agency in the world that regulates the honesty of games."
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