General: Fear and gambling in Las Vegas

By Piet Van Leer Sports Central Columnist

Vegas baby, Vegas. Words brought to fame by Vince Vaughn in "Swingers," echoing through our generation, much in the same manner that plastics was coined in "The Graduate" and resonated with baby-boomers. And Friday, my plane landed there.

One caveat before I proceed ... be decisive. Don't hesitate, or you're done. For instance, I wanted to bet on Miami. They were in Tallahassee, and if memory serves, they hadn't lost a regular-season game since FDR was in office, and they were more than a 2-to-1 dog on the money line.

I got $200 to lay down on the 'Canes, but I hold off. Maybe the odds will get better if I wait? So I party for a while, then come back to the sports book around 3:00 AM. The good news was that the odds had increased ... the bad news was the sports book was closed. Closed? In a city that deals blackjack and serves alcohol 24/7, 365 days a year? How is that possible?

And then I noticed Tina from the Real World. I even said "Hey, you're Tina from the Real World?" And she said, "I am not." I didn't believe her, so I persisted in asking her to the point that she asked for security. I welcomed the challenge, stating that security could come over, check all our IDs, and she would see that she is in fact Tina from the Real World. She declined.

I stayed out until 7:00 AM that morning, and needless to say, I didn't wakeup in time to lay down the bet. Had I woken-up in time and taken the 'Canes, who did win, I wouldn't have spent the entire weekend trying to win back the money I had failed to initially lay claim to!

And now it's 1:00 on Saturday, and the college day is in full swing. Another piece of advice, with some help from Jeremy Piven of PCU: "You're wearing the shirt of the band you are going to see. Don't be that guy."

Well, there were tons of those guys in the sports book. Texas, Oklahoma, Miami, and FSU supporters came out for Separation Saturday, all letting you know how incredibly spirited they are by wearing the jerseys of the team they were rooting for. Not that it's terribly wrong to do so, but the odds of them ever seeing a call going against them that isn't tainted, biased, or inaccurate usually rise with the fade in their school colors.

So if you aren't a college football fan, Vegas is not the place for you on fall Saturdays. Game 3 of the Yankees/Red Sox was on, and I couldn't find a spot to be at to see the game. I had to go to a bar in the hotel to watch the game with virulent Red Sox fans. Thank god Clemens came through on a 1 1/2-to-1 to bet, or else I would have put myself on a serious downswing entering Sunday.

Sunday morning, 9:15, I am not sleeping past the commencement of the NFL games. Philly had dropped to a point underdog after starting out as a would-be favorite. And I think to myself, these are still roughly the same Eagles who, despite a bad start, were favored to go to the Super Bowl last year. And these are roughly the same Cowboys, who won five games last year, and last I looked, Bill Parcells doesn't wear pads.

In Vegas, as in the rest of the world, this is known as a sucker bet. If the line looks to good to be true, it probably is. I though, fell for the same trick as everybody else, and bet the Eagles. I should have known that after Dallas scored on a failed onsides kick in three seconds that I could have ripped up my betting slip right then.

Using the sucker philosophy, I stayed away from the Dolphins/Jags game, where the Fish were only favored by three points, and, of course, the Dolphins covered.

I ran into a regular of the sports book, who took the Cowboys and the Jaguars for some obscenely high-amount, like $10,000 or something. He was using the philosophy of, if everyone else is playing it, take the opposite, because unless you have Stevin "Hedake" Smith on your payroll, the house always wins.

This same entrepreneur was trying to get me to take some first-half parlays. For those of you unfamiliar with those, you can actually bet on the first-half of games, point spreads and all. Now I don't know what exactly the definition of a degenerate gambler is, but if you're encouraging others to take part in parlay first-half bets, it's safe to say that you might have a problem.

And again, there were plenty of jerseys in the house to let you know who people were betting on. Well, the jerseys, and everyone cheering like crazy for the Eagles. And the Eagles disappointed. The house always wins. Yet we keep coming back for more. Vegas baby, Vegas.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.