March 21, 2005
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No surprise, but Vegas is the big winner at tournament time
“Little too much champagne last night,” Clair says. “Little too much everything.”
That’s the ethos here in the land of grandiose hotels, clubs, bars and, above all, dollars: There’s no such thing as too much. The NCAA Tournament attracts to
It’s obsessive, and only getting bigger.
“This is by far the busiest four days of the year,” says Bob Scucci, the Stardust’s sports book director.
It’s because of people like Clair. This is his third year coming to
He’s gone to 15 World Series, eight Masters and eight Stanley Cups, and he says nothing matches the first four days of the NCAA Tournament in
“Only three things can happen,” Clair explains. “If the Gators win, great, they won. If the Gators get smoked, you win thousands of dollars. The other happens once in a blue moon: The Gators win and you still win your bet. Best of everything.”
Clair wakes up at
Walking back toward the sports book, Clair doesn’t feel a pang of guilt betting against his alma mater. He finds himself caught up in the same morass as the thousands of others who pack sports books this weekend, the line of too much that’s seemingly nonexistent.
“Morally, it’s horrible,” Clair says. “But what the hell. You’re in Vegas.”
As banks and schools and offices ran as usual Thursday morning, grown men in
At the Stardust, the granddaddy of sports books where the betting lines are set, every seat is filled. If nature calls, the only way to save a seat is by writing TAKEN on a piece of paper. Sometimes, people don’t care.
In that respect, sports books are testosterone Miracle-Gro. Alpha males strut. Emotion trampolines. Strangers become brothers when a kid whose name they don’t know and never will bother to find out hits a shot that covers the spread.
“The betting is so constant,” Scucci says. “There’s interest in every game, every shot, every . . . ”
Scucci cranes his neck and eyeballs the goofballs letting out huzzahs. Someone hit a shot for 16th-seeded
“You’re looking up to see who’s making a meaningless basket,” Scucci says. “Well, they’re not meaningless.”
There’s anguish, agony. And not just on TV. Forlorn faces and shaking heads speckle the crowd at the Stardust. Sports books reek of smoke and desperation. Numbers are everywhere. On walls, on lips, on minds. These are mortgage payments, retirement funds, groceries, educations, heating bills. Bad bounces bounce checks. Everyone in a sports book needs. A shot, a rebound, a prayer. To want isn’t enough.
“The luckiest person in here,” one man says, “is the one who doesn’t bet.”
Betting, of course, built this place, bought the 79 TVs, funds Scucci. Betting, too, attracts the majority of people here. It feeds the beast.
Television does its share as well. CBS paid the NCAA $6 billion for 11 years of tournament rights. Four games beam down simultaneously on the big screens at the Stardust. Then, the cut-ins start. CBS flashes to a different game. A lower seed is about to pull an upset. Announcers raise their voices an octave. Bettors, more likely to pick the favorite, squirm.
Those games end. On to the next. The day always leaps forward. Until night falls, there’s another game, another chance. At
After winning his first bet of the day, the
“Dude, I’m telling you, this is the best place I’ve ever seen,” says Watkins, 40. “Look at people sitting on the floor. I mean, this is the best, right?”
Watkins watches two teams from his parlay lose, meaning it will pay 5-to-1 if his remaining 10 teams win.
“Well,” Watkins says, “kind of the best.”
He stuffs his ticket back in his pocket. It’s good for now, at least for a moment. Losers dispose of theirs, some with a single tear and others by ripping and shredding and sprinkling the remains like pixie dust that lost its magic.
OK then, enough of this. Over the first two days of the tournament, thousands of bettors have laid millions of dollars and bathed in the excitement. It’s my turn. On Friday night, my school, fourth-seeded
That fades quickly.
The
Commercial break. Deep breaths. That David Spade commercial is on. For some reason, he’s more annoying than usual.
Back to the game, and
“Boy,” says Alan Cribb, a 26-year-old from
No.
With 3.7 seconds remaining,
Likewise, karma wins in overtime. T.J. Sorrentine drills a 25-foot three-pointer in overtime that sent Catamounts coach Tom Brennan leaping into the air. So do expletives at the
When
“Just to let you know,” says the boss, “that’s not company money.”
Fine, as long as I get to keep the ticket. I don’t want to crumble it up or tear it or burn it. It’s a lesson that, perhaps, there is such a thing as too much.
Outside of the
They’ve worn the shirts eight times. They’re still white enough for an angel. On the back collars are the letters K and U, and on the left breast read the words Las Vegas March Madness.
Raul Alcantar and his family make the trip every year from
Because in the last pairing of first-round games, the Jayhawks are losing to 14th-seeded Bucknell. This can’t be happening. This wouldn’t happen.
This could happen. This did happen. Bucknell beat KU.
It’s too much for the Alcantar family to take.
“I’ve had so many freakin’ people calling me,” Barbara says. “I’m not picking this up anymore.”
She stuffs her cell phone into her pocket and huffs off. Raul, meanwhile, watches the remaining three games. He seems shocked in a city where shock value is lost.
“We didn’t play any good defense,” he says. “We didn’t put pressure on. We had the shot we wanted and (
“And I bet on the over. It was a push.”
He doesn’t care about the money, the bet, the action, the feeling. To Alcantar_to the dozens of KU fans hanging their heads at Stardust_the gambling was secondary.
A 20-something wearing an Aaron Miles jersey professes his loyalty to KU. A man standing behind him, with one Miller Lite in hand and another dozen or so in his stomach, says, “How can you be after that ?”
Earlier in the day, in his room at the Hard Rock, Bill Clair was pontificating about
“The key is the second marriage,” says Clair, the 46-year-old purveyor of The Gator Hedge. “If your wife understands you, you pay for private-school tuition, you pay for bling, and she lets you go to Vegas the first week of the NCAA Tournament. As my wife says, if I put as much energy into my business as I did here, I’d be a millionaire.
“It’s hard trying to explain to your friends if you’ve never been here this weekend. They look at me with a blank stare. They don’t get it. For a guy like me, this is better than going to one of those events live. The amount of action_and I’m not just talking betting. You can’t watch four games at once anywhere else.”
Clair walks off. He’s headed down to the book to win some more, money he hopes goes into his pocket this time.
Craig Watkins did the same a day earlier, and Alan Cribb that day, and all of the others who trolled the Strip in pursuit of riches, or a gambling buzz, or wherever they got their kicks.
Behind the gambling windows at Caesars stands Chuck Esposito, the director of the sports book. He has a smile on his face. His casino raked in plenty of money this weekend, sure, and that felt good.
“But this weekend,” Esposito says. “It’s fun. It’s what we live for.”
