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Neon lights! Dancing girls! Hoops! |
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Written by asap
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Thursday, 15 March 2007 |
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A cocktail waitress in fishnet stockings and a low-cut top wanders through the crowd with a full tray, dishing out mixed drinks and beer as if it were a busy weekend night, not early on a Thursday morning.
A few dozen people linger near the betting windows, checking out the big electronic board before putting their money down, while others grab one of the 100 or so seats and start pouring over their daily sheets, trying to find that one sure bet.
The logo for a pregame show flashes on the big screen, leading to a whoop from a group in the back, and a few minutes later the first game — Maryland and Davidson — tips off, setting off a round of cheers from the entire group.
This is Vegas, baby, and the city is never more alive than during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
“There’s nothing like it, you can’t even explain it,” says Neil Gross, a lawyer from New York who meets high school buddies in Vegas for the tournament every year. “By Sunday morning I can’t watch anymore basketball. I’m all basketballed out after 14, 15 hours a day on every game there is. I don’t even see the outside. I’ll come out even paler than I am now.”
He’s not alone.
The Super Bowl and the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are the two biggest weekends in Vegas in terms of revenue at the sports books. Guests fill every hotel, cars and pedestrians jam the streets and sidewalks, and bettors overrun the sports books, cheering and groaning with every twist and turn of every game.
The Super Bowl is great, and so are the Kentucky Derby and the New Year’s Day college football bowl games. But those don’t have the buzz of the NCAA’s first weekend. Forty-eight games, starting early in the morning, lasting late into the night for four straight days — it doesn’t get much better than this for sports fans.
“The vibe is awesome because you’ve literally got people sitting next to each other who have bets on these three games and another guy’s got bets on these three games, and they’re out there yelling and screaming all day long,” says Rich Baccellieri, director of the Palms Casino Resort sports book. “It’s awesome to be here for this weekend.”
At the Palms, a few blocks off the Strip, the crowd starts gathering around 7:30 a.m., the die-hards getting in position for the best view of the big screen TV in the middle of the room, which shows four games simultaneously on a split screen.
By the time the first game tips off, few hundred bettors fill the sports book, some sitting in leather chairs with arm rests that look like desks at an elementary school, others gathering in groups around a bank of TVs near the back.
The electronic board spells out all kinds of bets in red letters, from the day’s games — even on the first and second half scores — to odds for winning a region or the whole thing. There are dozens of TVs around the room, most showing the tournament, but a few with horse races from around the country for the handful of racing fans along the outside of the room.
The crowd is all male and mostly young, though there are a few from the frumpy and lumpy crowd, the ones who look like they’re in the sports book every day, whether or not the NCAA Tournament is being played.
No matter who they are, they seem to live and die by the games, pumping their fists and high-fiving when one of their teams hits a big basket, cringing and raising their arms when a call goes against them.
And the ebb and flow doesn’t always depend on which teams win and which ones lose. In Vegas, it’s all about the point spread; even when a game seems to be over, it isn’t in the minds of bettors — as long as the point spread is still within reach.
Davidson was a popular pick against Maryland, thanks to a 7 1/2 point spread, and it appeared there were going to be plenty of happy people in the sports book when the Wildcats kept it close into the second half. But the early cheers quickly turned to jeers down the stretch as the Terps started pulling away, eventually winning by 12 to crush the underdogs’ hopes.
Texas Tech, a two-point dog to Boston College, was another early favorite among the Palms crowd. That game was also close into the second half, but the favorite again pulled away, causing one bettor to kick at his friend’s chair and let out a flurry of curse words.
A few of us liked Stanford getting 5 1/2 points against Louisville, which hadn’t played all that well late in the season, but that one was blown out of the water from the start. Louisville had a double-digit lead early in the first half and kept building on it, leaving those of us foolish enough to wager on the Cardinal with our faces in our hands, unable to look at the screen.
It was tough to take, but this is Vegas and there are always plenty of opportunities to win it back — particularly during the NCAA Tournament.
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John Marshall is asap’s sports writer, in Las Vegas to cover the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. | Only registered users can write comments.
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