Las Vegas bookmaking icon Jimmy Vaccaro has retired after 50 years of service to the gambling industry.
Vaccaro, who will turn 80 in October, helped shape the landscape of today’s legal sports betting industry through his work and many achievements.
Key takeaways
- Vaccaro famously took bets on Mike Tyson to lose to Buster Douglas in 1990.
- A return to bookmaking hasn’t been completely ruled out for the Vegas legend.
- While speaking on the modern-day spread of sports betting, Vaccaro said he and others “just left the door open.”
Vaccaro, a 2021 inductee into the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame, left his post as an oddsmaker at South Point Hotel Casino & Spa in July.
He started his career as a blackjack dealer at the Royal Inn in 1975, when owner Michael Gaughan allowed him to attend his dealer school with the promise that he would repay the $250 cost when he had the funds. Vaccaro later worked at The Mirage, Leroy’s, and William Hill sportsbooks in Las Vegas.
He returned to South Point in 2013, where he stayed, except for a brief stint at Rivers Casino Pittsburgh in 2019.
Following his retirement earlier this summer, he moved back to his native Trafford, Pennsylvania, where he said he was ready to spend his days away from the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas.
“It’s been a great ride, but we all get old,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It was time. Fifty years is enough. I want to spend some time just doing nothing.”
Despite stepping away, Vaccaro didn’t rule out a possible return to bookmaking or working in America’s gambling capital.
“Everything can change in a minute,” he said. “Who the hell knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. I might do something now and then (for a sportsbook). I’m sure I’ll be back in Las Vegas. But it’s going to take me a while.”
Vaccaro’s most famous moments
Vaccaro became a local legend in 1990 while working at The Mirage.
Ahead of Mike Tyson’s bout with Buster Douglas on Feb. 11, virtually no other sportsbooks offered odds for Douglas to upset Tyson. Instead, their odds revolved around Tyson’s method of victory and which round would signal the end of the fight.
Vaccaro bucked the trend and installed the 37-0 Tyson as a -4200 favorite but took bets on Douglas, who ended up handing Tyson the first loss of his career.
“When The Mirage opened, it was a new era,” said Vaccaro. “We got a new type of person coming to The Mirage and sportsbooks in general. One of them used to bet a lot of money on boxing. This is insane, but it’s the truth. He bet $420,000 to win $10,000. He laid 42-1.”
Vaccaro also famously caught a whiff of the Dallas Cowboys’ struggles in 1989, the first year that Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson were in charge. He took about five minutes to come up with a projected win total of 5.5 after a customer asked him to set their odds, resulting in that customer betting $38,500 on the over.
The Cowboys only went 1-15 that year before later winning three Super Bowls in four years from 1993-96.
Vaccaro was later immortalized in a 1995 episode of The Simpsons’ parody of America’s Most Wanted, titled Springfield’s Most Wanted.
A tangible impact
Thirty-nine states have now legalized sports betting since the pastime was legalized federally in 2018.
Although Vaccaro is stepping away from the industry, his fingerprints remain all over the modern-day explosion of gambling.
“I was probably the only one who said, ‘We ain’t seen nothing yet,’ way back when it started,” he said. “We’re not geniuses. We just left the door open for a little bit.”
