But several bettors are pushing up to the two adjoining '$1,000minimum' windows of the Olympiad Race and Sports Book. It's 9:45a.m. Pacific time on a fall Sunday, and a dozen other windows aredoing rush-hour business in the dimly lighted cavern that CaesarsPalace touts as 'the world's biggest and most luxurious race andsports book.'
Thirty minutes later, an eye-boggling (and brain-numbing) ninelive National Football League games are running simultaneously on thebattery of giant video screens that blanket the wrap-around wall ofthis satellite-fed and computer-powered cocoon for sports junkies.The Bears-Vikings game has place of pride on the largest screen, a26-by-19-foot monster.
The noise level seems only slightly less deafening than on the50-yard line at Soldier Field. Cheering breaks out as interceptions,sacks and touchdowns flare up on one screen and then another.
All 400 of the plush-cushioned chairs are filled with fans, anda standing-room crowd is gathered behind them, mixing with the queuefor the $8.50 Olympiad Race and Sports Book Brunch. The last row ofseats is fitted out with poker machines for double-duty gamblers inneed of a quick fix.
Colorful banners draped from the ceiling add to the festive air,while the 1 1/2 million yellow, green and red lights on theelectronic scoreboard panels give an eerie 'Star Wars' cast to thevast room.
In a separate section to the right, a more contemplativecongregation of horse bettors is about to watch the first races fromLaurel and Belmont. A cigarette girl in a breast-revealing CaesarsPalace toga moves down one aisle. Among her wares are sunglasses -unlikely items of merchandise in this twilight zone.
Across the way, a volley of cheers heralds another Vikingtouchdown, on a Sunday when the favored Bears are suffering theirfirst 1988 defeat - and disgracing themselves before legions of LasVegas bettors by falling 27 points short of the spread.
My own modest gambling foray shows a profit for the day: $10lost on the Bears, $11.50 won on my $10 pick of the baseballCardinals over the Cubs. I've ventured only close enough to the'$10,000 minimum' window to watch a half-dozen high rollers put downwagers. The football betting limit is $50,000 per game at CaesarsPalace, and book director Louis J. D'Amico tells me the next day thathe takes at least a couple of maximum bets every fall Sunday.
'Football is our hottest sport,' says D'Amico, an articulateoddsmaker with the look of a stylishly groomed accountant. 'OnSundays here, you feel like you're at the stadium, and we try toproject that excitement. The big screens and the electronic boardsadd to the mystique. It's like going to Disneyland. This isentertainment.'
It's entertainment indeed, designed to offer sports-happy casinocustomers another outlet for their gambling cash. And it's a hitshow of the late 1980s in Las Vegas, where as recently as 1974 therewere just nine sports books - none in casino hotels - handling a mere$8 million in wagers for that year.
Now 30 Las Vegas casinos have books of some kind. Legal sportsbetting here during the most recent fiscal year totaled a whopping$1.3 billion - as much as 15 percent of all the money gambled inNevada's No. 1 resort. Profits to casino owners from the booksamounted to $75.6 million.
Not all Las Vegas sports books are created equal. Some stilllook like a slightly seedy afterthought - a few betting windows, acouple of 21-inch television sets, grease-pencil or chalkboardposting of odds and results. Twenty-two of the casino books offerracetrack as well as sports wagering; the other eight take onlysports bets, and four of those handle just parlay cards.
The smoke-filled betting parlors of a generation ago are avanishing species in Las Vegas, in part because of recent state lawsthat require sports books to post a $1 million bond and computerizetheir records. The only two independent books still surviving areLeroy's and Little Caesars.
Meanwhile, the splashiest sports action takes place at CaesarsPalace's Olympiad and the rival SuperBook at the Las Vegas Hilton,both opened in the last couple of years.
Like Caesars, the Hilton brags that its book is the world'slargest. 'Ours is the biggest and best,' says Art N. Manteris,director of Hilton's race and sports facility, which is embellishedwith a $150,000 lifesize sculpture of the famed horse Man O' War. 'Wehave the most square footage, and our video displays are the largestin the world except for the NORAD strategic-defense setup inColorado.'
Athird player in the major league of sports books here is theStardust. Its operation lacks the space-age special effects ofCaesars and the Hilton, but the Stardust is where the 'wise guys' -the heavyweight bettors - gravitate. That's thanks in large part todirector Scott Schettler's national reputation as the man who firstsets the betting line each morning.
'We're the plain vanilla book,' says Schettler. 'We don't haveany fancy gimmicks. Our gimmick is giving you a fresh shot at theline. The Olympiads and the SuperBooks may look terrific, butthey're functionally silly. The Hilton's space would make a greatdrive-in movie - it's that dark. Ours is brightly lighted, andStardust customers like it that way. On a football Sunday, you can'tget into the place.'
An oddity about the Stardust's book is that football ranks onlyNo. 3 in terms of betting volume, contrary to its strong hold on thetop spot at almost every other casino.
At the Stardust, basketball is No. 1 and baseball No. 2.'That's because we welcome the non-football business that the othercasinos discourage,' Schettler says.
Though Schettler is a pro's pro among oddsmakers, he's alsoeager for the business of neophyte bettors. 'The size of your betmeans nothing to us,' he declares. 'Everyone is welcome here,including tourists who've never bet a game in their lives.'
That sentiment is echoed by other books. 'At Caesars Palace, weget everyone from the high rollers to the guys who bet the $2 parlaycards,' says D'Amico. 'On weekends, the majority of people in theOlympiad are tourists from out of town. We have hosts at ourinformation booth, and visitors should feel free to ask them thesimplest questions.
'Today's novice bettor may turn into next year's regular,'D'Amico points out, 'and that's what we want in the long run.' Heoffers this basic advice: Learn as much as you can before placing your first bet. Bet the outcome of an individual game rather than the morecomplicated stuff. Never bet more than you can afford to lose. (The minimum straightfootball wager at Caesars is $10, and a bettor normally must put down$11 to win $10.) There's little point in shopping around for the most favorable pointspread, because the books rarely vary much for NFL games and othermajor events - even though most oddsmakers insist that they set theirown line independently.
The sports-book boom started rolling about five years ago in LasVegas after passage of a law allowing live telecasts of horse races.At the same time, a reduction in the federal excise tax onsports-book wagers from 2 percent to one-quarter percent made theventure profitable for casino hotels. And the technology was readyto match the new opportunity.
'Satellite transmission is the real key that makes it work forus,' says Manteris. 'The live viewing capability charges up theexcitement. And the computers are important for handling the largevolume of action we're now getting.'
Nevada law prohibits sports books from taking bets on amateur orprofessional events held in Nevada, on elections, or on any othernon-sporting activity. Telephone bets from outside Nevada arebanned, and telephones are not allowed in the books, except bypermission of the state's Gaming Control Board. (Atlantic City has norace or sports books; they're illegal under New Jersey law.)
Las Vegas observers agree that the sports-book boom has yet topeak here. 'Three or four new books have opened this year, butwagering at my place is up 10 percent,' says Jerry Ludt, director ofthe Barbary Coast's facility. 'The more places that open, the morecustomers they seem to create. We're beginning to see more womenbettors as well.'
Caesars Palace is building an even larger sports book, scheduledto be ready next spring. 'Our present room will be used exclusivelyfor racing,' explains D'Amico. 'Sports bettors will have their ownfacility, where they can cheer as loud as they want to, while therace guys will have more peace and quiet to study their forms.'
For action-hungry couch potatoes, the sports books are anelectronic revelation. As Manteris observes: 'Where else can you sitcomfortably with a cocktail on a Sunday and watch 13 football gameslive on big screens?'
And maybe put down some money on your favorite team, even if the'$10,000 minimum' window is a bit too rich for your bankroll.
