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By JULIAN DICKINSON
There isn’t a single place on earth that epitomizes the term “March Madness” more completely than a Las Vegas sportsbook.
You think your living room is crazy just because a couple of buddies come over and spill beer on your carpet during the opening round?
Well, how about a place like the Las Vegas Hilton where they’ll be converting the Hilton Theatre into “Hoops Central.” The hall where Barry Manilow usually plays will be filled with as many as 1,500 well-lubricated hoops fanatics watching all the games on 20-foot by 20-foot screens?
That’s real madness.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what it’s like behind the counter as bookmakers try to figure out odds on 33 first-round games over the course of one night while bettors wait with bankrolls at the ready for any opportunity to beat the books.
Even at the best of times, the job of defending the casino’s money against sharps, wise guys and whales seems like a nerve-wracking endeavor. Multiply the number of games and the amount of money on the line during tourney time and you’ve got yourself an industrial-sized pressure cooker.
At least that’s what you’d think. But talking to Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race & sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hilton, the NCAA Tournament is no big deal.
According to Kornegay, there are no all-night meetings on Selection Sunday, when the matchups for the Tournament are announced after which time most sportsbooks give themselves about 12 hours to get the lines out for the first-round games. As he was needled for information about the bookmaking process at this time, Kornegay calmly dismissed the idea of his staff sweating over the numbers and, in fact, said the bookmakers at his casino don’t even have a face-to-face meeting.
“We’re communicating by computer,” the veteran bookmaker said of the routine between himself and his supervisors and managers. “We’re only talking about 32 games and it’s not like these are teams we’ve never seen before, so we don’t get too worked up. We already have a good feel for what these numbers should be. It’s not rocket science. We’re pretty comfortable with it.”
Kind of disappointing, huh? It’s kind of satisfying to imagine the bookies sweating it out for a night and maybe coming out with at least a few lines that bettors could swoop in and take advantage of.
But even a sharp like Covers Expert Ted Sevransky doesn’t think the workload is too much for the books to handle. In fact, he thinks bettors already missed out on their best chance to beat the books.
“The books are more vulnerable during conference tournaments than they are in the Big Dance,” Sevransky says. “Conference tourneys force the bookmakers to put up numbers in a big hurry for games played that day, making that weekend an outstanding opportunity for serious bettors.
“In the NCAA tourney, the books have much more time to investigate and research with individual teams playing every other day instead of every day.”
But with the state of Las Vegas expected to take about $150 million on college basketball bets this March, this can’t be just another month for the books. I don’t care what they say.
I asked Greg Sindall of SportsInteraction.com if March Madness makes him nervous.
“I wouldn’t say nervous, but you’re more aware because there’s so much action coming in all at once because there’s so much action,” Sindall said. “I’ll be paying more attention to specific games, but not all the games. But sometimes for no reason you’ll get a bunch of bets coming in on one game for apparently no reason and you have to be ready to deal with it.”
Maybe bettors should pay attention to those changing pointspreads too. Public money is one factor could give savvy bettors an edge at this time of year. As oddsmakers sit on the edge of their seats ready to react (or overreact) to betting patterns, you have to remember who is making bets on the games in this tournament. The most significant difference between the NCAA Tournament and the rest of the college hoops season is the prevalence of casual bettors.
So when the steam starts to move the lines this week, just think about exactly who might be laying the money down and whether you want to go with the crowd or if there might be value going against the movement.
Kornegay admits the casual bettors he sees are “more educated” than they used to be before the advent of the Internet, but even still, he says the crowd in Vegas at this time of year is decidedly younger and a little more square than the usual sportsbook crowd.
“This is a popular time of year, kind of like Super Bowl,” Kornegay commented. “A lot of people mark it on calendar and might be only time they visit Las Vegas. To a lot of fans, this is the best time of year, but I wish I could take pictures of them before and after.”
Maybe that’s why Kornegay and the other oddsmakers say they don’t get geeked up about March Madness. It’s one of the biggest betting events of the year and one during which the sharp bettors generally stay away and the sportsbooks get filled with goofy college kids ready to bet favorites and overs.
On second though, what do they really have to worry about?
There isn’t a single place on earth that epitomizes the term “March Madness” more completely than a Las Vegas sportsbook.
You think your living room is crazy just because a couple of buddies come over and spill beer on your carpet during the opening round?
Well, how about a place like the Las Vegas Hilton where they’ll be converting the Hilton Theatre into “Hoops Central.” The hall where Barry Manilow usually plays will be filled with as many as 1,500 well-lubricated hoops fanatics watching all the games on 20-foot by 20-foot screens?
That’s real madness.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what it’s like behind the counter as bookmakers try to figure out odds on 33 first-round games over the course of one night while bettors wait with bankrolls at the ready for any opportunity to beat the books.
Even at the best of times, the job of defending the casino’s money against sharps, wise guys and whales seems like a nerve-wracking endeavor. Multiply the number of games and the amount of money on the line during tourney time and you’ve got yourself an industrial-sized pressure cooker.
At least that’s what you’d think. But talking to Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race & sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hilton, the NCAA Tournament is no big deal.
According to Kornegay, there are no all-night meetings on Selection Sunday, when the matchups for the Tournament are announced after which time most sportsbooks give themselves about 12 hours to get the lines out for the first-round games. As he was needled for information about the bookmaking process at this time, Kornegay calmly dismissed the idea of his staff sweating over the numbers and, in fact, said the bookmakers at his casino don’t even have a face-to-face meeting.
“We’re communicating by computer,” the veteran bookmaker said of the routine between himself and his supervisors and managers. “We’re only talking about 32 games and it’s not like these are teams we’ve never seen before, so we don’t get too worked up. We already have a good feel for what these numbers should be. It’s not rocket science. We’re pretty comfortable with it.”
Kind of disappointing, huh? It’s kind of satisfying to imagine the bookies sweating it out for a night and maybe coming out with at least a few lines that bettors could swoop in and take advantage of.
But even a sharp like Covers Expert Ted Sevransky doesn’t think the workload is too much for the books to handle. In fact, he thinks bettors already missed out on their best chance to beat the books.
“The books are more vulnerable during conference tournaments than they are in the Big Dance,” Sevransky says. “Conference tourneys force the bookmakers to put up numbers in a big hurry for games played that day, making that weekend an outstanding opportunity for serious bettors.
“In the NCAA tourney, the books have much more time to investigate and research with individual teams playing every other day instead of every day.”
But with the state of Las Vegas expected to take about $150 million on college basketball bets this March, this can’t be just another month for the books. I don’t care what they say.
I asked Greg Sindall of SportsInteraction.com if March Madness makes him nervous.
“I wouldn’t say nervous, but you’re more aware because there’s so much action coming in all at once because there’s so much action,” Sindall said. “I’ll be paying more attention to specific games, but not all the games. But sometimes for no reason you’ll get a bunch of bets coming in on one game for apparently no reason and you have to be ready to deal with it.”
Maybe bettors should pay attention to those changing pointspreads too. Public money is one factor could give savvy bettors an edge at this time of year. As oddsmakers sit on the edge of their seats ready to react (or overreact) to betting patterns, you have to remember who is making bets on the games in this tournament. The most significant difference between the NCAA Tournament and the rest of the college hoops season is the prevalence of casual bettors.
So when the steam starts to move the lines this week, just think about exactly who might be laying the money down and whether you want to go with the crowd or if there might be value going against the movement.
Kornegay admits the casual bettors he sees are “more educated” than they used to be before the advent of the Internet, but even still, he says the crowd in Vegas at this time of year is decidedly younger and a little more square than the usual sportsbook crowd.
“This is a popular time of year, kind of like Super Bowl,” Kornegay commented. “A lot of people mark it on calendar and might be only time they visit Las Vegas. To a lot of fans, this is the best time of year, but I wish I could take pictures of them before and after.”
Maybe that’s why Kornegay and the other oddsmakers say they don’t get geeked up about March Madness. It’s one of the biggest betting events of the year and one during which the sharp bettors generally stay away and the sportsbooks get filled with goofy college kids ready to bet favorites and overs.
On second though, what do they really have to worry about?
PS-MARVIN LOVES SPLIT SALAD !! 
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