The guy in the white Brian Urlacher jersey had it all figured out.
“I’ve got to go with St. Louis,” said Mark Berger, 28, a Renaissance Health Care administrator on the South Side who bet it like he meant it. “The last time the Rams played New England, it was on the road, on grass, a bad climate, and they still won.
“Now you’ve got them indoors, on turf, the No. 1 offense, the No. 3 defense, Kurt Warner’s a cool cat, Faulk will be the MVP.”
The guy in the blue Urlacher jersey had it all figured out.
“We do fantasy football, so we’re semiprofessionals,” said Steve Giambi, 36, a Chicagoan who got word the day before he left for Vegas that Motorola will lay him off in April. “I like New England with the points, but I won’t bet it. I like the unders.”
The guy in the orange Urlacher jersey had it all figured out.
“The Rams are just too good,” said Don Beal of Sheridan, Ill. “I bet against them every time and I lost, so I’m betting with them.”
Yeah, they had it all figured out. Yeah, they all had Super Bowl XXXVI wired on the single biggest betting day of the year.
Patriots 20, Rams 17. That’s why Vegas continues building pyramids, castles and the Eiffel Tower on the Strip.
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Mandalay Bay’s Race and Sports Book is three stories high and a football field wide. There is a video screen bigger than Soldier Field’s. It is surrounded by the red-green-orange listing of games, a constantly changing line of, well, lines. And there are enough chairs with desks to make you think you walked into Wise Guy High.
The VIP area with marble counters and five televisions is for guys who bet $50,000 a game or $10,000 a day on the races. If you drop $250,000 a game or $30,000 a day at the races, there’s a private room waiting for you.
Super Bowl XXXVI was played in New Orleans, but about 1,500 miles away they had their own little Mardi Gras with teaser cards.
There are more women than you’d think and more men than you can count. There are leather coats and leather pants, T-shirts and flannels. There’s even a guy wearing a red Blackhawks jersey with Alex Zhamnov’s number on it.
“I’m from Toronto, but I hate the [Maple] Leafs,” Marty Zilio said. “I like the jersey and my favorite number is 13.”
Actually, Zilio’s favorite number is 14. “I like the Patriots and the points,” he said.
By 9 a.m. local time on Super Bowl Sunday, six of the 13 betting windows were open, one of them set aside for people plunking down a minimum of $3,000 (Vegas’ version of express lanes).
By 11 a.m. all 13 windows were open, and people sitting in the front row were getting a close-up view of some stranger’s backside.
By 1:15 p.m., 2 hours 15 minutes before the scheduled kickoff, the lines snaked back to the casino. It would take you 45 minutes to place a bet, so they opened three more windows inside a VIP party area that housed 1,100 of the casino’s closest friends.
“Always place your bets the day before,” counseled Nick Bogdanovich, Mandalay Bay’s race and sports manager. “The Super Bowl always brings out the squares, and the squares don’t know how to bet, so it takes time.”
“Squares” is Vegas-speak for unsophisticated gamblers. Sara Majors is a square. Dressed in a Rams NFC championship T-shirt, Majors was numbed by the rows of lighted Super Bowl bets.
“I didn’t understand half the betting stuff,” she confessed. “The 2-1 I understand, but the minus-700, plus-550 stuff I didn’t. He explained it to me.”
“He” is Mike Kisner, who was dressed in a Marshall Faulk jersy and Rams NFC championship hat. He came to Vegas with Majors from St. Louis and helped her get down a Super Bowl bet.
“Ten whole dollars,” Majors said.
Parrr-tttyyyy!
– – –
The guy in the yarmulke had it all figured out.
“The Rams are going to win,” he said, standing in line with his wife, “but I don’t understand all the bets.”
Maybe your wife can help.
“I’m just here to keep my marriage strong,” she said.
– – –
The charm and mania of Super Bowl Sunday in a Vegas sports book are the proposition bets. The sucker bets. They allow you to bet on virtually anything that might happen in a football game, with the possible exception of the Bears covering Philadelphia players in the end zone.
Want to bet that Kurt Warner’s first pass will be a completion? Put down $160 to win $100, pal.
Want to get down on whether there will be a safety? Pays 6-1, fella.
Want to wager on which player will score first? Tom Brady is 25-1, buddy.
“That’s why it’s so crazy,” said Hugh Citron, Mandalay Bay Race and Sports Book supervisor and a native Chicagoan. “With all these bets, every play matters.”
Right down to the end. You can even bet on which team will score last, a nifty little sports-book device that allows gamblers to chase right down to the dying minute of the season and keep the sports book at fever pitch, no matter that the game might be a rout.
And if you can think of a bet that is not already among the more than 150 posted, see Bogdanovich.
“I had guys who wanted to call the final score,” Bogdanovich said, “but we have strict auditing rules [by the Nevada Gaming Commission] and there’s no way we could set up the computer to get true odds.
“But if you were in an alley, I could give you odds.”
That’s the thing about Bogdanovich. He lets people play. Many casinos run by corporate types set limits. The MGM Grand, for instance, limits its own whales–that’s Vegas for high rollers–to $50,000 on the Super Bowl, $20,000 if you’re a local wise guy (that’s Vegas for professional gambler).
The new truth here is people who run Vegas are afraid to take a gamble. Not Bogdanovich. At Mandalay Bay, in the spirit of Vegas, it’s all you can eat.
Even if it’s a $1.8 million bet.
Somebody walked into Mandalay Bay last week and put down that bet on the Rams. He bet the money line, which has no points or vigorish. It is simply an odds bet. Lay ’em or take ’em. In this case, the Rams were minus-600, meaning the bettor laid the $1.8 million to win $300,000.
“I believe if you let a guy play, you’ve probably made a customer for life,” Bogdanovich said.
It’s easier for Bogdanovich do it on the Super Bowl. Here’s why: On a regular NFL weekend, Mandalay Bay will do “a couple million,” Bogdanovich said. For the Super Bowl he was right around $6 million. Letting them play, indeed.
– – –
The guy in the Bledsoe jersey had it all figured out.
“It’s going to be 27-24 Patriots, in overtime,” he said. “Everybody is underestimating them, and they’re going to put Warner out. I wish there was that bet.”
See Bogdanovich. Bring money.
– – –
Kickoff, finally. The best time for Bogdanovich, Citron and the rest of the sports-book staff.
“There’s kind of a lull,” Citron said. “That’s when we let our tellers go to the bathroom.”
Warner gets introduced. The sports book goes nuts. This is a Rams crowd.
“The public loves favorites and offense,” Bogdanovich said, explaining the noise and the 14-point spread.
The Rams receive. Big cheers. Somebody laid $105 to win $100 on that prop.
Warner’s first pass is incomplete. Big boos. Laying the $160 to win $100 cost a lot of people.
Jeff Wilkins kicks a field goal–3-0 Rams. That’s a $100 payout on a wager of $210 that the Rams would score first. It’s also a 7-2 payoff that the first scoring play of the game would be a Rams field goal.
Now you understand why this is the place where they watch the game and go to the bathroom during the commercials.
– – –
By halftime, the lines were back. Lines at the windows because Bogdanovich had posted new lines for points and props for the second half. A majority of the bettors chased their pregame Rams bets with second-half Patriots bets, if boisterous cheers for a Rams holding penalty meant anything.
And the place went full-metal bonkers when Adam Vinatieri kicked the winning points.
Patriots 20, Rams 17.
Somebody just lost $1.8 million on one bet.
He had it all figured out.
