LAS VEGAS – You don’t have to travel far off the Strip to be light years from the Strip.
A drive east on Tropicana Boulevard brings you past an array of business that range from 7-11 convenience stores to palm readers to places where, for a not-so-small fee, locals can cash their paychecks. Condos and apartment buildings, plucked down into the sand, are everywhere, and they are all in beautiful colors as long as you like beige.
After 15 of 20 traffic lights you will eventually reach Boulder Highway, home to tiny grind joints like the Longhorn, moderate-sized casinos like Arizona Charlie’s, and the ever present Sam’s Town.
Sam’s is to locals what the Strip mega-casinos are to tourists, and it’s also home to one of the best sportsbooks in the city.
“We’re not going to get the high rollers in here,” says engaging sportsbook manager Jack Schneider. “We know what we are. But that doesn’t diminish the excitement that occurs here on Super Bowl Sunday.”
What occurs is a swarm of thousands of Las Vegas-area bettors, some of whom are placing bets for the first time in their lives, just because it’s the Super Bowl. It’s a scene that is replicated at every casino in the city. Hours before the start of the game, players seek out seats, and the lines to place bets are sometimes hundreds deep.
Schneider started in the casino business in the 1990s, punching tickets, and was hooked almost immediately. He landed a job at the Bellagio as a supervisor, then became the boss at Sam’s Town, which is literally 15 miles from the Bellagio but figuratively a lot further. Bellagio has Olives; Sam’s has a food court with a McDonald’s.
Sam’s Town caters to an older crowd (out-of-towners are not flown in at casino expense; they arrive in their own RVs and put roots down in the Sam’s special parking lot), but everyone from the cashiers to the blackjack dealers to the sportsbook workers seem to enjoy their jobs. Even notoriously grumpy and suspicious pit bosses go about their jobs with smiles.
Schneider, who may be the busiest man in the casino during Super Bowl week, always finds the time to patiently explain the difference between betting the point spread and betting the money line to novice customers.
“Sometimes it does get a little frustrating,” says Schneider. “It would be great if everyone coming to the window could educate themselves a bit before they bet, but that’s the nature of the business and we appreciate everyone’s business.”
Even if that business is proportionally quite a bit smaller than what the big boys at the Mirage, Caesars and Hilton will be doing come Super Bowl weekend. Schneider points out that the largest bet he took at the Bellagio was $55,000; at Sam’s the biggest single wager was $10,000.
Much of Sam’s non-Super Bowl bets come in the form of parlays. “It’s the one way,” says Schneider, “that someone with not a lot of money can make a decent score.”
Stupak’s million-dollar bet
Every year around Super Bowl time the question is asked about the largest single wager ever made on the game, and that in turn conjures memories of the one and only Vegas legend Bob Stupak.
Stupak, a self-promoter in a town that is chock full of them, is credited with moving the Strip a quarter-mile to the North when he built the Stratosphere in the mid-1990s.
The story goes that in 1989 Stupak bet $1 million at the now-defunct Churchill Downs book (now the site of Planet Hollywood), taking the Bengals and 7 against San Francisco in Super Bowl XXIII.
The 49ers won, but the final was 20-16 and Stupak reportedly had his $1 million, minus the vig. The legend lives, but many locals in the business feel that Stupak may have hedged his bets, though there is no proof.
Little line movement
As of late Wednesday the line was holding in most books at Indianapolis -5.5, but Mirage properties (MGM, Mandalay Bay, NY/NY etc) were also holding firm at 5.
Maybe it was the bad shrimp at the buffet
President Obama’s advice to families about the virtues of saving money rather than “blowing it” on trips to Vegas makes perfect sense, but it’s driving the locals – whose livelihoods depend on tourists – over the edge.
“(Las Vegas Mayor Oscar) Goodman said we lost $350 million in business the last time Obama talked about not coming here for conventions,” said one taxi driver. “We have to eat, too.”
Local newspapers are reporting that Goodman plans to give the president an earful when Obama visits Vegas in a few weeks.