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Visit old Las Vegas Race & Sportsbooks and colorful characters that inhabited them. Those old haunts became big underdogs to the bulldozers once the corporations took over the city. Memories of those spartan joints fade a bit more with each of us who remember but are cashing in. Like Red Skelton said "thanks for the memories" |
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Las Vegas is home to many impressive, high-tech betting venues that don’t give a hint of what and who "brought them to the dance." The amenities are outstanding as each book try’s to outdo the other’s with more and bigger TVs, digital odds boards, contests, and pizzazz. Today’s sportsbooks main purpose is to entertain hotel guests so they don’t leave for another one. Keep them in the hotel so they’ll play slots and go up against table games with a much bigger hold percentage than their sportsbook holds. At the bottom of the list of reasons hotel/casinos make heavy investments in a sportsbook nowadays is to actually book, to take wagers. True bookmaking is close to extinct in today’s Las Vegas. Of course, you can bet on games and bet big at some resorts, but if they think you’re half smart and liable to win, your wagers might be limited or even refused. Today’s sportsbook personnel have no qualms about refusing wagers and some even enjoy the phony power trip.
It’s a 180 from early LV when the sole reason to have a sportsbook, wether stand alone or in a hotel, was to book the games, to take bets. Simulcast horse racing wasn't here yet. Those sportsbooks were Spartan with meager amenities. The draw was the action. It certainly wasn’t huge TV screens or all the bling associated with today’s Las Vegas sports betting. Bookmaking, taking and paying bets is what packed the books. They were venues that brought willing bookies and eager bettors together. Who cared that the race and sportsbooks were on the worn out side? Gone also are sportsbook personnel who understood the concept of bookmaking. We’ve been weeded out.
It works against you in today’s Las Vegas to have had previous bookmaking experience from outside Nevada. We’re especially talking street experience. It will keep you from getting hired because you’ll be smarter than most the suits they already hired.
The Stardust
The 1995 movie Casino was about the Stardust Hotel/Casino, Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal aka 'The Lefthander' and 'Tough Tony' Spilotro. Robert De Niro played Lefty aka Ace Rothstein in the movie. Sharon Stone played Jerri, his wife. Joe Pesci played Tony Spilotro, and the Stardust was called the Tangiers. The race and sportsbook in the movie was not the Stardust but was actually an unopened book in the Jockey Club on the North end of The Strip. The Casino movie story line was basically correct but didn’t portray Lefty’s real life vision in creating the Stardust Race and Sportsbook. In real life Lefty, a master handicapper, moved from his hometown Chicago to Miami, and then in 1968 to Las Vegas. He began running the Rose Bowl Race and Sportsbook on the Strip. He was later tapped by his hometown Chicago Outfit in the ‘70s to look out for their interests in the Stardust Hotel & Casino.
While in this position, he conceived and built a race and sportsbook for the Stardust. Way ahead of his time, he saw the power of a race and sports book as a money machine benefiting an entire property, not just a little niche in the corner as was the business decision of other hotels. What ingenious ideas Lefty had and brought to fruition. Remember, race and sportsbooks in the hotels were not much more than a small betting counter, an afterthought. Even Caesars Palace had but a small carousel of a sportsbook. So small, in fact, players would reach around and change odds on the boards when the sportsbook personnel weren’t paying attention.
Lefty had the blessings of Chicago behind him. Lefty, who may have never cracked a smile in his life, saw the big picture and didn’t have to answer to corporate suits upstairs and their bean counters in the basement.He built a mammoth race and sportsbook with ceilings three stories high. The race and sports boards were a couple stories high themselves, reaching almost to the ceiling. They were big enough to require catwalks and ladders behind them, so odds and results could be put in by hand, much like the Fenway Park or Wrigley Field scoreboards.
The race book odds and results boards were the best ever. Nothing in today’s advanced tech age can compare and the players loved them. They were so easy to read compared to today’s digital boards. The race book behind-the-scenes process started at 6:00 a.m. when two girls typed entries, jockeys, and morning odds into a machine that transferred them to film. The girls would then take the film to the racebook's dark room to develop them. They were actually negatives when developed. Each race was on a 6" X 12" negative. Five or six tracks minimum were produced. Once developed, the girls would call upstairs to the boardroom so a race book board man would come down and get them. He took the films back upstairs to the cavernous boardroom, which resembles a spaceship. There would be a five- or six-man crew up in the catwalks and control room. Two rows of race boards, each a story tall with its own catwalk. The guys could maneuver the catwalks like Tarzan. The monster room was dim with a speaker system that added to the spaceship atmosphere. Where did the negatives come in? Lefty had big projectors installed behind each race board, over fifty of them. The negatives were placed on each projector in their proper order of track and race. They were then projected onto the rear of the giant boards and the 6" X 12" negatives were now projected to 3.5’ X 7’. out in the racebook. Our customers on the other side, down on the main floor, had a clear, easy to read black and white odds, track conditions, scratches and mutuals of every race.
As race results came in, a guy in the control room, located in the guts of the boardroom, announced the results to the guys on the catwalks who would open up the corresponding door and insert the results, again like Fenway. To protect the customers from errors, Lefty installed a movable video camera on the opposite side of the racebook, facing the boards, so the man in the control room could scan the posted results for accuracy. The racebook players had no idea what went into this process. All they saw were big, neat boards. Good thing.
The race board men were a unique crew, kind of like a parallel workforce. Some of them may have actually bunked in that cavernous area. They had couches on each catwalk. A girlfriend or two were rumored to have visited. When I took over in 1983, I just pretended I never saw anything. The work was always done on time. They didn’t need a supervisor. Enough said. Upper management and security didn’t venture up there since it was only accessible by a ladder, like a submarine only in the air. Once, however, the fire department did go up there on an inspection. The control room walls were covered with hundreds of pinups. They had to come down—fire hazard, you know.
Lefty installed a state-of-the art satellite TV system with a monster theater screen and a compliment of smaller screens to bring in games and races other books didn’t even acknowledge as existing. He had a maintenance crew assigned exclusively to take care of the satellite system and TVs. People flocked to the Stardust. We outdid the other Hotels with hundreds of games on TV every week.
The sports boards, on the other side of the huge book, were a one-man operation in a much smaller setting than the race operation. The sports boards and room covered about one-fifth the area of the race boards. They were located on the second floor, directly above the sportsbook counter. Two rows with three 5’ X 6’ boards in each row. A bottom row and another row on top. Each board was on hinges making it a door in fact. Results and odds were displayed on plaques and cards, again like Fenway. The bottom three boards were floor level while the top row was reached with a big, rolling ladder. Every team ever booked, in every sport, pitchers in baseball, league names, dates, times, etc., were on permanent plaques. When a new pitcher was brought up from the minors, or a fight or any event not on a plaque was booked, we made a plaque for it, right in the boardroom. There were trays of letters and numbers that could cover everything. As the action in the sportsbook below caused the odds to move a sports supervisor announced them via speakers hooked up to a mike. This was broadcast in the sportsbook and also in the sports boardroom.The board man would then open the big doors and put odds changes or scores in their slots. He had a sports ticker and TV for scores also.
The board men on the sports side were a unique breed also, and much more a part of the betting action because they were they were partially visible when they opened the big doors. The most unique was Bobby 'the Beard'. Bobby was my favorite board man. We shared a passion for doo-wop music. Bobby had an awesome record collection and unmatched knowledge of doo-wop. I was sorry to see him go. However, one Friday about 10:00 p.m. Bobby spells out a message on the boards, locks the boardroom heavy door and goes home. The message read, for the entire casino to see: "REAGAN ENDS WELLFARE CREATES 5000 NBA TEAMS." No more Bobby 'the Beard' at the Stardust. Later, in the 90s, after I left the Stardust, Lefty’s boards would be replaced with electronic boards, much to the customers’ chagrin.
Another unique event also took place at night. In 1986, my good friend, swing shift worker Jay Johnson, was in my office, arranging TV games on the satellite control panel to show out in the sportsbook. All of the sudden, the whole place erupted, howling, laughter. Jay found two elephants going at it on National Geographic and put them on the huge screen for the race and sportsbook to see. D’Wayne Mauldin, his supervisor, broke the twenty-yard dash record getting back there to take them down.
The Stardust has been razed like most of the Hotels that paved the way, erased from The Strip but not forgotten.
Churchill Downs Race & Sportsbook
If an early Las Vegas sports book could be restored for all to appreciate, it should be Churchill Downs on the south end of The Strip.
Harry Gordon owned Churchill (in the old days, race and sports books were named after racetracks) every day of its existence. In 1967 he wisely brought in legendary oddsmaker Bob Martin to take over the sports side of the operation. Harry continued to run the race book while Bob ran the sports side. His odds were the Gospel throughout the country.
Churchills sports book counter consisted of five writer stations and a single cashier. Behind the counter were big, heavy odds boards that could be raised and lowered by hand like a window. Above them was the first reader board in town. It stopped often requiring a whack on the “smart spot” with a broom handle. Below the odds boards sat a noisy Western Union sports ticker with the classic paper ribbon pouring out. Harry connected the ticker to the afore mentioned reader board so the reader board showed everything that came banging across the ticker. Western Union would routinely disconnect them but they always got reconnected again as soon as they left.
The odds boards were permanently lined similar to boxscores to accommodate all sports. We added odds, scores and status of ongoing games with chalk by hand. We'd wipe them clean every morning and begin again writing visitors on top, home team on bottom, followed by game time and odds. Looking to the right, like a boxscore, a glance gave you a living history of games in progress. Scores in football were recorded with a small 3 or 7 and who scored it written in the margin. When the quarter finished it was marked in orange.
Baseball was a work of art. Each inning was designated with the time it started. If time between half innings got to 7-9 minutes with no score posted, the room buzzed with speculation: Men must be on base; how many? Were they scoring? A pitching change? Pitcher knocked out or righty-lefty change? With a glance at the time the inning started you knew “how long they’ve been out” (good or bad, depending who you had).
As home runs came in on the ticker they were marked with a symbol in the inning-in-progress spot. In the margins were the batter and how many were on base – marked with chalk, of course. When it became almost certain they were scoring (via pitching changes, HRs) the conversation shifted to how many runs: Field goal (three runs)? More? Less? The ticker clanked and all eyes looked anxiously at the reader board for the answer.
When it came to TVs in those days – fugeddaboudit – there was just one. But, we did have a transoceanic radio to pick up the Armed Forces Network, which carried lots of games. Sometimes the crowd ended up out front for better reception. Who knows what the tourists thought seeing this loud, cheering outfit?
Facing all this, on the other side of the counter, were four rows of seats, about 12 per row. The back row was special, reserved for owners of hotels, big bettors, street bookmakers, and assorted wiseguys.Some of the casino owners who sat there included Sid Wyman/Dunes; Major Riddle/ Silverbird; Joe Slyman/Royal Casino; Frank Kish/ Skyline; Sam Diamond/Aladdin next-door. Also, guys like Joe the vice cop, Anthony “the Little Guy” Spilotro and members of his crew, Blackie, Pittsburgh Jack, Hunchy, Bobby the Midget, “Fat” Gerry Dehlman, Scotty Fehr, Julie Moskewitz, Ray Vara, Bert Brown, Joe 'Nails'/Snyder; E. Walker, Mel Golden, Lips, Marty Kane, Joey Boston, Frank Carduci, Jimmy “The Greek,” and Doc Mindlin.
The prestigous back row was neutral territory, so Joe the vice cop could sit next to Tony Spilotro with no problem, like a timeout was called.
There weren’t many serious disagreements and hardly any violence on property in those days, although once a man got murdered out back, then was run over to prove a point but most beefs were settled elsewhere. For sure there weren’t any robberies of customers on property. You could pay and collect without any hassle.
In those days, tickets were written, graded and paid by hand. Accounting was by hand, too, since computer betting, with its paper trail, wasn’t around yet. That was a good thing because all we kept two sets of records to even the playing field. You see, there was a 10% Federal tax on wagers that neither players nor bookies could overcome. The sports books operated on maybe a 3% win, so they figured out a way around the onerous tax.
Bettors who were known and trusted had an “R” written on the bottom of their ticket. If anybody asked, it stood for “tax refund,” but it had a different meaning for us."R” tickets were written for 10% of value, i.e., a $100 bet was written as $10. We knew it was worth $100 and paid accordingly if the bettor won. But to the bean counters, it was only $10. It had to be done this way just to stay open.
In the early 1970s, the tax was reduced to 2%. You'd think the bookmakers would be happy but not so. You see, we could work on the fly while figuring 10% but using 2% was a headache and invited mistakes since it was all done by hand on the spot. Later it was reduced again to .25% where it stands today. This eliminated the need for 'creative accounting' but also paved the way for casinos to get into the race and sports betting business, resulting in the eventual demise of the stand-alone book. The Nevada Gaming Commission finished off the stand-alone joints by regulation. All race/sportsbooks had to be accompanied by a minimum 200 rooms. Churchill being grandfathered in lasted a few more productive years before being bulldozed to make room for The Paris Hotel and a it's gaudy Effile Tower now sits on the ghost of seasons past.
Churchill's Owner Harry Gordon A Stone Cold Bookie
Las Vegas race and sports betting started with Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen and the race wire in the 1940s. In the 1960s, Harry Gordon opened Churchill Downs Race & Sports book on The Las Vegas Strip. Besides Churchill on the Strip, Harry also owned the Derby and Hollywood race and sports books downtown. Other books around Las Vegas at the time included the Paddock, Saratoga, Del Mar, Santa Anita, and Rose Bowl. Hotel casinos didn’t have them on property till 1976 when the Nevada regulations were changed. Harry was a stone cold bookie; he had no fear, or at least he didn’t show it. He booked with his own money and would take just about anything in the horses. No pari-mutuels in those days, we paid track odds. Just put it up, and Harry would accommodate you.
Harry was smart enough to bring in legendary bookmaker Bob Martin to run sports side of Churchill. Harry would never sweat a horse or game. He’d worry if the soda machine wasn’t stocked; he’d travel to Henderson to get a good deal on cookies and candy for the horse book but wouldn’t blink at a six-figure decision, horses or sports.
Harry lived in Rancho Circle, in one of only twenty-two homes there. It was the most expensive, prestigious area of Las Vegas then. Although Harry wouldn’t sweat a big decision he would sweat the small stuff. It was evident Harry loved his horse employees but wasn’t too crazy about us in sports. He didn’t allow his sports writers more than two cookies a day. Us sports writers could feel him watching as we made the trek through the horse room to the coffee and cookie table. The cookies were for his horse room.
Harry would sometimes write horse tickets with his window was next to the cashier of course. He kept a candy bowl within two feet of his window on the horse counter and watched so no ones hand came out with more than two pieces. On Saturdays, Harry would spring for .10 cent ice cream bars for the players in both rooms. Churchill’s porter Joe Green handed them out, with instructions from Harry that sports employees couldn’t have one. Joe would sneak them to us however. We all made good money under the table in sports so who cared?
Tell Harry he had a $100,000 decision on a horse or game and he might reply; "Is the soda machine stocked?" never sweating a horse or game, or at least show it. He was a stone cold BM.
Save Me An Egg Salad Pal (more Churchill)
Infants can make grown men act like baby talking fools. A pretty girl can turn a grown man into mush. A steak sandwich can turn a dime bettor into a scuffler. How so? On Saturday mornings, early 70’s at Churchill, Bob Martin always ordered 75 egg salad sandwiches from Jackie’s Deli and 75 steak sandwiches from the Tower of Pizza. It was Sarge’s job to go get them. This was Sarge’s moment in the sun. About 10 a.m., Sarge became the man. Everybody depended on him to get in his cab and get the sandwiches.
Sarge drove cab but had a client, Bob, on retainer. Bob didn’t drive but had a private cab always ready and Sarge to get him where he wanted to go. Sarge had the only cab that was valet parked at Caesars Palace. Saturday mornings in Churchill Downs Sarge ran the show. Eventually he would mosey out to his taxicab – Sarge’s normal speed was mosey – and drive off. Everybody’s waiting on these sandwiches like it’s the highlight of the whole week – and for some, it was.
The ritual would start at the beginning of the week. The shortstops would whisper to the writers, “Hey, save me an egg salad, okay?” or, “Save me a steak, will yah?”
So, now it’s about 11:00 Saturday morning and they start looking outside for Sarge’s cab. “Hey, you see Sarge yet?” Someone would see a cab. “Hey, I think I see him!” ..... “That’s an ACE Cab, you dummy. Sarge has a Yellow Cab.” Eventually, when he was good and ready, Sarge would pull up with cardboard boxes full of these awesome sandwiches. They went behind the sports counter for us writers to hand out. Guys would be like cattle rushing up. They sweat scores all week, but while the sandwiches were in play, scores could wait. It was pick’em which sandwich was best although I made the Tower’s steak the favorite.
Scoring a sandwich was a big deal. If you got one you were one of the guys (at least till you ate it), one of Churchill’s “in crowd.” This one guy, Lupo (wolf in Italian), was another cab driver and like Sarge never picked up a fare. His entire life was devoted to scamming people. If he had the choice of picking a fare up and making $20 or scamming somebody for $5, he’d choose the scam. Lupo would start on Monday, one writer at a time: “Save me a sandwich, will ya?” He would somehow always manage to get four or five then sell them. He had a route, I guess. He’d put 10 times the energy into his scams than it would have taken to pick up a fare.
The whole scene was like a government experiment: how to turn grown men who bet serious money into mush. Infants can make grown men act like baby talking fools. Bob must be smiling.
It’s a 180 from early LV when the sole reason to have a sportsbook, wether stand alone or in a hotel, was to book the games, to take bets. Simulcast horse racing wasn't here yet. Those sportsbooks were Spartan with meager amenities. The draw was the action. It certainly wasn’t huge TV screens or all the bling associated with today’s Las Vegas sports betting. Bookmaking, taking and paying bets is what packed the books. They were venues that brought willing bookies and eager bettors together. Who cared that the race and sportsbooks were on the worn out side? Gone also are sportsbook personnel who understood the concept of bookmaking. We’ve been weeded out.
It works against you in today’s Las Vegas to have had previous bookmaking experience from outside Nevada. We’re especially talking street experience. It will keep you from getting hired because you’ll be smarter than most the suits they already hired.
The Stardust
The 1995 movie Casino was about the Stardust Hotel/Casino, Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal aka 'The Lefthander' and 'Tough Tony' Spilotro. Robert De Niro played Lefty aka Ace Rothstein in the movie. Sharon Stone played Jerri, his wife. Joe Pesci played Tony Spilotro, and the Stardust was called the Tangiers. The race and sportsbook in the movie was not the Stardust but was actually an unopened book in the Jockey Club on the North end of The Strip. The Casino movie story line was basically correct but didn’t portray Lefty’s real life vision in creating the Stardust Race and Sportsbook. In real life Lefty, a master handicapper, moved from his hometown Chicago to Miami, and then in 1968 to Las Vegas. He began running the Rose Bowl Race and Sportsbook on the Strip. He was later tapped by his hometown Chicago Outfit in the ‘70s to look out for their interests in the Stardust Hotel & Casino.
While in this position, he conceived and built a race and sportsbook for the Stardust. Way ahead of his time, he saw the power of a race and sports book as a money machine benefiting an entire property, not just a little niche in the corner as was the business decision of other hotels. What ingenious ideas Lefty had and brought to fruition. Remember, race and sportsbooks in the hotels were not much more than a small betting counter, an afterthought. Even Caesars Palace had but a small carousel of a sportsbook. So small, in fact, players would reach around and change odds on the boards when the sportsbook personnel weren’t paying attention.
Lefty had the blessings of Chicago behind him. Lefty, who may have never cracked a smile in his life, saw the big picture and didn’t have to answer to corporate suits upstairs and their bean counters in the basement.He built a mammoth race and sportsbook with ceilings three stories high. The race and sports boards were a couple stories high themselves, reaching almost to the ceiling. They were big enough to require catwalks and ladders behind them, so odds and results could be put in by hand, much like the Fenway Park or Wrigley Field scoreboards.
The race book odds and results boards were the best ever. Nothing in today’s advanced tech age can compare and the players loved them. They were so easy to read compared to today’s digital boards. The race book behind-the-scenes process started at 6:00 a.m. when two girls typed entries, jockeys, and morning odds into a machine that transferred them to film. The girls would then take the film to the racebook's dark room to develop them. They were actually negatives when developed. Each race was on a 6" X 12" negative. Five or six tracks minimum were produced. Once developed, the girls would call upstairs to the boardroom so a race book board man would come down and get them. He took the films back upstairs to the cavernous boardroom, which resembles a spaceship. There would be a five- or six-man crew up in the catwalks and control room. Two rows of race boards, each a story tall with its own catwalk. The guys could maneuver the catwalks like Tarzan. The monster room was dim with a speaker system that added to the spaceship atmosphere. Where did the negatives come in? Lefty had big projectors installed behind each race board, over fifty of them. The negatives were placed on each projector in their proper order of track and race. They were then projected onto the rear of the giant boards and the 6" X 12" negatives were now projected to 3.5’ X 7’. out in the racebook. Our customers on the other side, down on the main floor, had a clear, easy to read black and white odds, track conditions, scratches and mutuals of every race.
As race results came in, a guy in the control room, located in the guts of the boardroom, announced the results to the guys on the catwalks who would open up the corresponding door and insert the results, again like Fenway. To protect the customers from errors, Lefty installed a movable video camera on the opposite side of the racebook, facing the boards, so the man in the control room could scan the posted results for accuracy. The racebook players had no idea what went into this process. All they saw were big, neat boards. Good thing.
The race board men were a unique crew, kind of like a parallel workforce. Some of them may have actually bunked in that cavernous area. They had couches on each catwalk. A girlfriend or two were rumored to have visited. When I took over in 1983, I just pretended I never saw anything. The work was always done on time. They didn’t need a supervisor. Enough said. Upper management and security didn’t venture up there since it was only accessible by a ladder, like a submarine only in the air. Once, however, the fire department did go up there on an inspection. The control room walls were covered with hundreds of pinups. They had to come down—fire hazard, you know.
Lefty installed a state-of-the art satellite TV system with a monster theater screen and a compliment of smaller screens to bring in games and races other books didn’t even acknowledge as existing. He had a maintenance crew assigned exclusively to take care of the satellite system and TVs. People flocked to the Stardust. We outdid the other Hotels with hundreds of games on TV every week.
The sports boards, on the other side of the huge book, were a one-man operation in a much smaller setting than the race operation. The sports boards and room covered about one-fifth the area of the race boards. They were located on the second floor, directly above the sportsbook counter. Two rows with three 5’ X 6’ boards in each row. A bottom row and another row on top. Each board was on hinges making it a door in fact. Results and odds were displayed on plaques and cards, again like Fenway. The bottom three boards were floor level while the top row was reached with a big, rolling ladder. Every team ever booked, in every sport, pitchers in baseball, league names, dates, times, etc., were on permanent plaques. When a new pitcher was brought up from the minors, or a fight or any event not on a plaque was booked, we made a plaque for it, right in the boardroom. There were trays of letters and numbers that could cover everything. As the action in the sportsbook below caused the odds to move a sports supervisor announced them via speakers hooked up to a mike. This was broadcast in the sportsbook and also in the sports boardroom.The board man would then open the big doors and put odds changes or scores in their slots. He had a sports ticker and TV for scores also.
The board men on the sports side were a unique breed also, and much more a part of the betting action because they were they were partially visible when they opened the big doors. The most unique was Bobby 'the Beard'. Bobby was my favorite board man. We shared a passion for doo-wop music. Bobby had an awesome record collection and unmatched knowledge of doo-wop. I was sorry to see him go. However, one Friday about 10:00 p.m. Bobby spells out a message on the boards, locks the boardroom heavy door and goes home. The message read, for the entire casino to see: "REAGAN ENDS WELLFARE CREATES 5000 NBA TEAMS." No more Bobby 'the Beard' at the Stardust. Later, in the 90s, after I left the Stardust, Lefty’s boards would be replaced with electronic boards, much to the customers’ chagrin.
Another unique event also took place at night. In 1986, my good friend, swing shift worker Jay Johnson, was in my office, arranging TV games on the satellite control panel to show out in the sportsbook. All of the sudden, the whole place erupted, howling, laughter. Jay found two elephants going at it on National Geographic and put them on the huge screen for the race and sportsbook to see. D’Wayne Mauldin, his supervisor, broke the twenty-yard dash record getting back there to take them down.
The Stardust has been razed like most of the Hotels that paved the way, erased from The Strip but not forgotten.
Churchill Downs Race & Sportsbook
If an early Las Vegas sports book could be restored for all to appreciate, it should be Churchill Downs on the south end of The Strip.
Harry Gordon owned Churchill (in the old days, race and sports books were named after racetracks) every day of its existence. In 1967 he wisely brought in legendary oddsmaker Bob Martin to take over the sports side of the operation. Harry continued to run the race book while Bob ran the sports side. His odds were the Gospel throughout the country.
Churchills sports book counter consisted of five writer stations and a single cashier. Behind the counter were big, heavy odds boards that could be raised and lowered by hand like a window. Above them was the first reader board in town. It stopped often requiring a whack on the “smart spot” with a broom handle. Below the odds boards sat a noisy Western Union sports ticker with the classic paper ribbon pouring out. Harry connected the ticker to the afore mentioned reader board so the reader board showed everything that came banging across the ticker. Western Union would routinely disconnect them but they always got reconnected again as soon as they left.
The odds boards were permanently lined similar to boxscores to accommodate all sports. We added odds, scores and status of ongoing games with chalk by hand. We'd wipe them clean every morning and begin again writing visitors on top, home team on bottom, followed by game time and odds. Looking to the right, like a boxscore, a glance gave you a living history of games in progress. Scores in football were recorded with a small 3 or 7 and who scored it written in the margin. When the quarter finished it was marked in orange.
Baseball was a work of art. Each inning was designated with the time it started. If time between half innings got to 7-9 minutes with no score posted, the room buzzed with speculation: Men must be on base; how many? Were they scoring? A pitching change? Pitcher knocked out or righty-lefty change? With a glance at the time the inning started you knew “how long they’ve been out” (good or bad, depending who you had).
As home runs came in on the ticker they were marked with a symbol in the inning-in-progress spot. In the margins were the batter and how many were on base – marked with chalk, of course. When it became almost certain they were scoring (via pitching changes, HRs) the conversation shifted to how many runs: Field goal (three runs)? More? Less? The ticker clanked and all eyes looked anxiously at the reader board for the answer.
When it came to TVs in those days – fugeddaboudit – there was just one. But, we did have a transoceanic radio to pick up the Armed Forces Network, which carried lots of games. Sometimes the crowd ended up out front for better reception. Who knows what the tourists thought seeing this loud, cheering outfit?
Facing all this, on the other side of the counter, were four rows of seats, about 12 per row. The back row was special, reserved for owners of hotels, big bettors, street bookmakers, and assorted wiseguys.Some of the casino owners who sat there included Sid Wyman/Dunes; Major Riddle/ Silverbird; Joe Slyman/Royal Casino; Frank Kish/ Skyline; Sam Diamond/Aladdin next-door. Also, guys like Joe the vice cop, Anthony “the Little Guy” Spilotro and members of his crew, Blackie, Pittsburgh Jack, Hunchy, Bobby the Midget, “Fat” Gerry Dehlman, Scotty Fehr, Julie Moskewitz, Ray Vara, Bert Brown, Joe 'Nails'/Snyder; E. Walker, Mel Golden, Lips, Marty Kane, Joey Boston, Frank Carduci, Jimmy “The Greek,” and Doc Mindlin.
The prestigous back row was neutral territory, so Joe the vice cop could sit next to Tony Spilotro with no problem, like a timeout was called.
There weren’t many serious disagreements and hardly any violence on property in those days, although once a man got murdered out back, then was run over to prove a point but most beefs were settled elsewhere. For sure there weren’t any robberies of customers on property. You could pay and collect without any hassle.
In those days, tickets were written, graded and paid by hand. Accounting was by hand, too, since computer betting, with its paper trail, wasn’t around yet. That was a good thing because all we kept two sets of records to even the playing field. You see, there was a 10% Federal tax on wagers that neither players nor bookies could overcome. The sports books operated on maybe a 3% win, so they figured out a way around the onerous tax.
Bettors who were known and trusted had an “R” written on the bottom of their ticket. If anybody asked, it stood for “tax refund,” but it had a different meaning for us."R” tickets were written for 10% of value, i.e., a $100 bet was written as $10. We knew it was worth $100 and paid accordingly if the bettor won. But to the bean counters, it was only $10. It had to be done this way just to stay open.
In the early 1970s, the tax was reduced to 2%. You'd think the bookmakers would be happy but not so. You see, we could work on the fly while figuring 10% but using 2% was a headache and invited mistakes since it was all done by hand on the spot. Later it was reduced again to .25% where it stands today. This eliminated the need for 'creative accounting' but also paved the way for casinos to get into the race and sports betting business, resulting in the eventual demise of the stand-alone book. The Nevada Gaming Commission finished off the stand-alone joints by regulation. All race/sportsbooks had to be accompanied by a minimum 200 rooms. Churchill being grandfathered in lasted a few more productive years before being bulldozed to make room for The Paris Hotel and a it's gaudy Effile Tower now sits on the ghost of seasons past.
Churchill's Owner Harry Gordon A Stone Cold Bookie
Las Vegas race and sports betting started with Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen and the race wire in the 1940s. In the 1960s, Harry Gordon opened Churchill Downs Race & Sports book on The Las Vegas Strip. Besides Churchill on the Strip, Harry also owned the Derby and Hollywood race and sports books downtown. Other books around Las Vegas at the time included the Paddock, Saratoga, Del Mar, Santa Anita, and Rose Bowl. Hotel casinos didn’t have them on property till 1976 when the Nevada regulations were changed. Harry was a stone cold bookie; he had no fear, or at least he didn’t show it. He booked with his own money and would take just about anything in the horses. No pari-mutuels in those days, we paid track odds. Just put it up, and Harry would accommodate you.
Harry was smart enough to bring in legendary bookmaker Bob Martin to run sports side of Churchill. Harry would never sweat a horse or game. He’d worry if the soda machine wasn’t stocked; he’d travel to Henderson to get a good deal on cookies and candy for the horse book but wouldn’t blink at a six-figure decision, horses or sports.
Harry lived in Rancho Circle, in one of only twenty-two homes there. It was the most expensive, prestigious area of Las Vegas then. Although Harry wouldn’t sweat a big decision he would sweat the small stuff. It was evident Harry loved his horse employees but wasn’t too crazy about us in sports. He didn’t allow his sports writers more than two cookies a day. Us sports writers could feel him watching as we made the trek through the horse room to the coffee and cookie table. The cookies were for his horse room.
Harry would sometimes write horse tickets with his window was next to the cashier of course. He kept a candy bowl within two feet of his window on the horse counter and watched so no ones hand came out with more than two pieces. On Saturdays, Harry would spring for .10 cent ice cream bars for the players in both rooms. Churchill’s porter Joe Green handed them out, with instructions from Harry that sports employees couldn’t have one. Joe would sneak them to us however. We all made good money under the table in sports so who cared?
Tell Harry he had a $100,000 decision on a horse or game and he might reply; "Is the soda machine stocked?" never sweating a horse or game, or at least show it. He was a stone cold BM.
Save Me An Egg Salad Pal (more Churchill)
Infants can make grown men act like baby talking fools. A pretty girl can turn a grown man into mush. A steak sandwich can turn a dime bettor into a scuffler. How so? On Saturday mornings, early 70’s at Churchill, Bob Martin always ordered 75 egg salad sandwiches from Jackie’s Deli and 75 steak sandwiches from the Tower of Pizza. It was Sarge’s job to go get them. This was Sarge’s moment in the sun. About 10 a.m., Sarge became the man. Everybody depended on him to get in his cab and get the sandwiches.
Sarge drove cab but had a client, Bob, on retainer. Bob didn’t drive but had a private cab always ready and Sarge to get him where he wanted to go. Sarge had the only cab that was valet parked at Caesars Palace. Saturday mornings in Churchill Downs Sarge ran the show. Eventually he would mosey out to his taxicab – Sarge’s normal speed was mosey – and drive off. Everybody’s waiting on these sandwiches like it’s the highlight of the whole week – and for some, it was.
The ritual would start at the beginning of the week. The shortstops would whisper to the writers, “Hey, save me an egg salad, okay?” or, “Save me a steak, will yah?”
So, now it’s about 11:00 Saturday morning and they start looking outside for Sarge’s cab. “Hey, you see Sarge yet?” Someone would see a cab. “Hey, I think I see him!” ..... “That’s an ACE Cab, you dummy. Sarge has a Yellow Cab.” Eventually, when he was good and ready, Sarge would pull up with cardboard boxes full of these awesome sandwiches. They went behind the sports counter for us writers to hand out. Guys would be like cattle rushing up. They sweat scores all week, but while the sandwiches were in play, scores could wait. It was pick’em which sandwich was best although I made the Tower’s steak the favorite.
Scoring a sandwich was a big deal. If you got one you were one of the guys (at least till you ate it), one of Churchill’s “in crowd.” This one guy, Lupo (wolf in Italian), was another cab driver and like Sarge never picked up a fare. His entire life was devoted to scamming people. If he had the choice of picking a fare up and making $20 or scamming somebody for $5, he’d choose the scam. Lupo would start on Monday, one writer at a time: “Save me a sandwich, will ya?” He would somehow always manage to get four or five then sell them. He had a route, I guess. He’d put 10 times the energy into his scams than it would have taken to pick up a fare.
The whole scene was like a government experiment: how to turn grown men who bet serious money into mush. Infants can make grown men act like baby talking fools. Bob must be smiling.
Churchill bookmaker Bob Martin
Over a couple decades the sports betting universe revolved around Bob Martin. In those days you could make a bet in any city in the country, but the point spread you bet for or against originated in Las Vegas, from the genius of Bob Martin who said "you know when you have the right number because it will fit like a glove". Bob Martin was the undisputed 'King of Oddsmakers' besides being pleasant, humorous, good company and easy to talk to, making people feel like they were somebody. A real stand up gentleman, trustworthy to the core.
"R" TICKETS (more Churchill)
At that time, there was a 10 percent federal tax on race and sports bets, which neither players nor bookies could overcome. The sports books operated on maybe 3 percent. You can’t win 3 percent and pay 10 percent of the gross to the feds. Likewise, the sharpest player on the planet couldn’t survive paying a 10 percent tax, penalty, extortion, or whatever you call it. You couldn’t book or bet in a compliant, legit book. So the books figured out a way to get out of the 10 percent federal tax long before I hit town. For the bettors who were known and trusted, we would write an "R" on the bottom of their ticket. The "R," just in case anybody would question, stood for "tax refund," but it had a different meaning for us.
All LV books had their own system but essentially served the same end. If a bettor was an "R" customer (known and trusted), we would write his ticket for 10 percent value, i.e., a $100 bet was written as $10 but with an R on the bottom. This way when we checked out, graded the ticket, and he cashed it, it was worth the full $100 wager. To the bean counters, it was worth $10. When the "R" customer cashed it, the cashier would see the R and knew it was really a $100 wager. Yet if any accountants looked at it, they would count it as a $10 ticket. It had to be done to stay open. So the writers and cashiers had to keep a couple tabs. At the end of the night, it was an adventure to tally up. Balancing your cash on the first pass was an upset. After all you would take $500 from a bettor, write the ticket for $50, and put the "R" on the ticket. Sometimes, you might forget the "R" and checking out a balanced cash drawer would be impossible. When the bettor came up to cash the ticket, he’d be expecting a payout on a $500 bet, so you had to be ready to pay off that amount. It was pretty involved, and you really had to know what you were doing.
One enterprising customer, Bryan, came up with an idea. Only problem was he only had half of it figured correctly. It’s football 1977 when Bryan comes to my window and bets $550 to win $500 and tells me he wants to pay the tax. Knowing he was an "R" customer, I try to write him an "R" ticket, but he insists on paying the tax. I reminded him he can get an "R" ticket, but he insists on paying the tax. He leaves with a $550 ticket. In a couple weeks, these guys come in from Dallas and cash the ticket. Benny the cashier gives them $1050, and they say the ticket was a $5500 bet, and they have $10,500 coming.
Bryan had told them of the 10 percent deal he had, and they gave him $5500 to bet. He bet $550, gives them the ticket, and goes south with the rest after it won.. They think it’s the type of ticket Bryan described before hand. It would have been perfect if the ticket had lost, but it was a winner. Picking losers is just as difficult as picking winners. It was eventually straightened out. Every last one of those hand writing books has been closed for decades. The Nevada regulations were amended to require that a race/sports book be accompanied by a minimum of two hundred rooms, i.e., a hotel. The old books were grandfathered in but just couldn't compete with the hotels. They all eventually closed.
(Note: Nevada Senator Howard Cannon got the tax reduced from 10 percent to 2 percent in October 1974. The press hailed him, but the books didn’t. Actually we were better off with the 10 percent figure, which was compatible to writing “R” tickets while 2 percent wasn’t.)
THE ROYAL CASINO, SMALL SPORTSBOOK, MONSTER ACTION
Years before I took over The Stardust Race & Sportsbook I opened a sportsbook for Joe Slyman in the Royal Casino in 1978. The Royal Casino was on Convention Center Drive next to the Royal Inn Hotel Casino. The Royal Inn next door, not to be confused with us, was owned by Michael Gaughn, Jackie Gaughn’s son.
Joe Slyman calls me one day, out of the blue, while I’m still at Churchill. He says he wants to put a sportsbook in his little operation, and he wants me to run it for him. I said, "Sure." But when I hung up, I said, "Wow!" So I went from writing sports tickets at Churchill to opening and running Joe’s sports book at the Royal Casino. It wasn’t in my plans, but it sure was in Joe’s, to book high, to have the biggest handles in Las Vegas. We handled so much money that some observers were flabbergasted, including the Gaming Control Board. Whatever you brought in, you could bet with us. Joe didn't care. He booked higher than anybody else. That was no big deal in itself; after all, someone had to be the biggest. But a ham and egg joint like the Royal?
Joe came to Las Vegas from Cleveland and was granted an unlimited gaming license at age twenty-seven. He didn't own the hotel. He leased the casino and coffee shop from the small hotel’s owners. Joe just needed a spot. The casino had seventy-five slot machines and about a dozen table games. We began booking sports in the casino's "showroom," which was nothing but a small time nightly burlesque show. We figured we could put the sportsbook in there along with the burlesque show. The burlesque show was making money, and Joe didn't want to close it down. So we had a counter built for the sports book on the opposite side of the showroom from the burlesque stage. Now we had the burlesque stage on one side and a sportsbook counter on the other. A curtain was added over the sports counter to cover it while the burlesque girls worked. At night, we lowered the curtain to hide the sportsbook counter and odds boards and turned the tables and chairs around to face the stage. The sportsbook became a burlesque theater.
In the morning, before we opened for sports, we’d drop the curtain on the burlesque stage, raise the curtain on the sportsbook counter, and turn the tables and chairs around the other way. It became a sports book again. It worked perfectly. Sports bettors, the serious ones, only want to get down (make a bet). They were not interested in the amenities—just take their money so they can try to win it back.
This was a gut shot to the expensive, elaborate casino sportsbooks and it was unsettling to the Gaming Control Board. How the hell could we outdo the bigger hotel casinos' sportsbooks. We didn’t even have a race book. A million dollar day, in midweek, what's going on there? All cash, no credit. Big bookmakers in the East and around the country certainly did more, but they were mostly credit. So you can imagine what the GCB was thinking. A little place like this handling handling that kind of money.
What was going on wasn't hard to figure out. We took big bets and lots of them. For every sports bet we took, we wrote a legitimate ticket and paid all appropriate taxes. The GCB eventually came in every day for awhile, set up a table and counted beans to their hearts’ content. They would go to work for the day, just like us. It reminded me of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog punching into the same time clock every morning in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
I'll never forget the day we opened. It’s a weekday during baseball season.The Cincinnati Reds are playing a day game, and some guy bet $60,000 on the Reds. Of course, I was used to bookmaking where you would at least try to get some money on the other side. It was our first day in business with no chance in hell of getting much on the other side. Joe says “don’t worry, just take it—we’ve got a well, ask him if he wants more." That made it pretty nice. It's easy to book when you don't have to worry about balancing the action. I don’t remember if the Reds won or lost but it didn’t matter, Joe just wanted the action. I learned a lot from Joe, especially about totals and how to move them for the greatest value.
By now, it became the Royal Casino that put up the most sought after numbers in Las Vegas. Most bettors and bookmakers respected our numbers because we took mostly sharp action. People would wait for us to open in the morning and monitor our numbers. So here's this little room on Convention Center Drive, packed full of people all day, every day. Serious gamblers looking for a weak spot in the early line and service guys waiting to send our line back East and around the country. Joe would give me the numbers in the morning, usually from his home. There were games he wanted to gamble on, so he'd shade them in a particular direction.
Once we put the line up, it was a race to be the first guy to the front door and get to the pay phones.They had every pay phone in the entire neighborhood mapped out. As soon as we put the line up, it was a stampede out of the place to get to one of the phones. No cell phones then. The guys would run out the door like we were having a fire drill. If somebody was looking at it and didn't know any better, he might have thought it was a bomb scare.
They had their cars parked at angles so they could peel away fast, like it was a bank robbery. It was the funniest thing, some of them would park so they were blocking the other guys to get a head start to a pay phone. It was like a circus, but it was very serious business getting a bet down before the odds changed.
One morning, a guy was working on patching the carpet or at least what was left of it. He's down on his hands and knees patching the carpet in front of the sports counter. I said, "Hey, buddy, we're opening up pretty soon. You might want to wait a while." He replied, "Oh, I'll be okay. I'm used to working around people." Of course, the poor guy was damn near trampled. He didn't realize what he was in for as he was crawling away on his hands and knees trying to save his life.
We hired Sam "The Plumber" Cagnino to help with our college basketball numbers. To be more accurate, Joe hired Sam to get his games. Sam was an uncanny college basketball handicapper, which was his only sport. Joe wanted to bet on Sam’s games, but he wanted Sam to write tickets also. Bad idea, Sam was a pencil and paper guy and had no chance to operate a ticket machine. None. Sam kept his basketball figures in an oversized, loose-leaf, beat-up notebook. He tracked hundreds of teams and kept his player figures, box scores, and updated power ratings in the smallest pencil entries possible. Any smaller and they’d be invisible. It’s an amazing workbook. I know because after Sam passed away, his wife gave it to me. She said Sam wanted me to have it. I’m honored that Sam "the Plumber" wanted me to be the caretaker of his life’s work. It’s a treasure I drag out when I attempt to tell people about pre-computer days.
Sam and his wife were a completely happy, compatible couple. She would go around the casinos betting for Sam. Their oldest son, Scott, would follow her undercover. She was a large lady and would be at least pick’em in a fight if someone tried to get Sam’s money. Being a large woman, Sam gave her a job to do one night. Sam told us, as if it was completely normal, that he had her sit outside on very windy Las Vegas night. He had her sit on their satellite dish base to keep it steady while he watched his beloved college basketball inside.
Gone
The first Super Bowl was played Jan. 15, 1967 in the LA Memorial Coliseum between the Packers and Chiefs.. The NFL and newer AFL weren’t yet merged. The two leagues and especially these two teams genuinely disliked each other. The Chiefs, owned by the lamar Hunt family, were the first team to pay their players what was then exorbitant salaries. By todays going rates they were still grossly underpaid. The NFL mantra was “the Hunts bought their team” whatever that meant. The Packers were publicly owned by the citizens of Green Bay and still are.
The underlying atmosphere behind Super Bowl 1 was a promoters dream. These players would have played the game for free just to get at each other. They almost did since the winner got $15,000 and the loser $7500. Vince Lombardi's Packers, -17 pt favorites, came through for their coach with a convincing 35-10 win. In the Trophy ceremony and press conference Lombardi wouldn’t knock the Chiefs till they hounded him into saying “OK we’re a better league.” The trophy today is named after Coach Lombardi.
Today’s kids won’t know a sports world that was a lot simpler, easier to watch and participate in with less showbiz and showboating. The self promoting pro influence is creeping into the college games and is slowly beginning to take hold in high schools. Screaming and pounding your chest after making a basket or tackle and mini end zone productions are glorified on TV. Soon if not already embedded in our kids vision of the games they play, this attitude will be as much a part of their game as discipline once was not so long ago.
Same with the Las Vegas race & sportsbooks. Millennials and younger will never know betting parlors that were not part of a hotel/casino. They once weren’t allowed, by regulation, in Las Vegas casinos. That regulation was changed in 1976 and all those nostalgic old, Spartan joints slowly disappeared one by one.
The characters who haunted those stand alone joints and the camaraderie that still exists among some of us old goats will be gone with us. Times change, change with them or get out of the way.
Over a couple decades the sports betting universe revolved around Bob Martin. In those days you could make a bet in any city in the country, but the point spread you bet for or against originated in Las Vegas, from the genius of Bob Martin who said "you know when you have the right number because it will fit like a glove". Bob Martin was the undisputed 'King of Oddsmakers' besides being pleasant, humorous, good company and easy to talk to, making people feel like they were somebody. A real stand up gentleman, trustworthy to the core.
"R" TICKETS (more Churchill)
At that time, there was a 10 percent federal tax on race and sports bets, which neither players nor bookies could overcome. The sports books operated on maybe 3 percent. You can’t win 3 percent and pay 10 percent of the gross to the feds. Likewise, the sharpest player on the planet couldn’t survive paying a 10 percent tax, penalty, extortion, or whatever you call it. You couldn’t book or bet in a compliant, legit book. So the books figured out a way to get out of the 10 percent federal tax long before I hit town. For the bettors who were known and trusted, we would write an "R" on the bottom of their ticket. The "R," just in case anybody would question, stood for "tax refund," but it had a different meaning for us.
All LV books had their own system but essentially served the same end. If a bettor was an "R" customer (known and trusted), we would write his ticket for 10 percent value, i.e., a $100 bet was written as $10 but with an R on the bottom. This way when we checked out, graded the ticket, and he cashed it, it was worth the full $100 wager. To the bean counters, it was worth $10. When the "R" customer cashed it, the cashier would see the R and knew it was really a $100 wager. Yet if any accountants looked at it, they would count it as a $10 ticket. It had to be done to stay open. So the writers and cashiers had to keep a couple tabs. At the end of the night, it was an adventure to tally up. Balancing your cash on the first pass was an upset. After all you would take $500 from a bettor, write the ticket for $50, and put the "R" on the ticket. Sometimes, you might forget the "R" and checking out a balanced cash drawer would be impossible. When the bettor came up to cash the ticket, he’d be expecting a payout on a $500 bet, so you had to be ready to pay off that amount. It was pretty involved, and you really had to know what you were doing.
One enterprising customer, Bryan, came up with an idea. Only problem was he only had half of it figured correctly. It’s football 1977 when Bryan comes to my window and bets $550 to win $500 and tells me he wants to pay the tax. Knowing he was an "R" customer, I try to write him an "R" ticket, but he insists on paying the tax. I reminded him he can get an "R" ticket, but he insists on paying the tax. He leaves with a $550 ticket. In a couple weeks, these guys come in from Dallas and cash the ticket. Benny the cashier gives them $1050, and they say the ticket was a $5500 bet, and they have $10,500 coming.
Bryan had told them of the 10 percent deal he had, and they gave him $5500 to bet. He bet $550, gives them the ticket, and goes south with the rest after it won.. They think it’s the type of ticket Bryan described before hand. It would have been perfect if the ticket had lost, but it was a winner. Picking losers is just as difficult as picking winners. It was eventually straightened out. Every last one of those hand writing books has been closed for decades. The Nevada regulations were amended to require that a race/sports book be accompanied by a minimum of two hundred rooms, i.e., a hotel. The old books were grandfathered in but just couldn't compete with the hotels. They all eventually closed.
(Note: Nevada Senator Howard Cannon got the tax reduced from 10 percent to 2 percent in October 1974. The press hailed him, but the books didn’t. Actually we were better off with the 10 percent figure, which was compatible to writing “R” tickets while 2 percent wasn’t.)
THE ROYAL CASINO, SMALL SPORTSBOOK, MONSTER ACTION
Years before I took over The Stardust Race & Sportsbook I opened a sportsbook for Joe Slyman in the Royal Casino in 1978. The Royal Casino was on Convention Center Drive next to the Royal Inn Hotel Casino. The Royal Inn next door, not to be confused with us, was owned by Michael Gaughn, Jackie Gaughn’s son.
Joe Slyman calls me one day, out of the blue, while I’m still at Churchill. He says he wants to put a sportsbook in his little operation, and he wants me to run it for him. I said, "Sure." But when I hung up, I said, "Wow!" So I went from writing sports tickets at Churchill to opening and running Joe’s sports book at the Royal Casino. It wasn’t in my plans, but it sure was in Joe’s, to book high, to have the biggest handles in Las Vegas. We handled so much money that some observers were flabbergasted, including the Gaming Control Board. Whatever you brought in, you could bet with us. Joe didn't care. He booked higher than anybody else. That was no big deal in itself; after all, someone had to be the biggest. But a ham and egg joint like the Royal?
Joe came to Las Vegas from Cleveland and was granted an unlimited gaming license at age twenty-seven. He didn't own the hotel. He leased the casino and coffee shop from the small hotel’s owners. Joe just needed a spot. The casino had seventy-five slot machines and about a dozen table games. We began booking sports in the casino's "showroom," which was nothing but a small time nightly burlesque show. We figured we could put the sportsbook in there along with the burlesque show. The burlesque show was making money, and Joe didn't want to close it down. So we had a counter built for the sports book on the opposite side of the showroom from the burlesque stage. Now we had the burlesque stage on one side and a sportsbook counter on the other. A curtain was added over the sports counter to cover it while the burlesque girls worked. At night, we lowered the curtain to hide the sportsbook counter and odds boards and turned the tables and chairs around to face the stage. The sportsbook became a burlesque theater.
In the morning, before we opened for sports, we’d drop the curtain on the burlesque stage, raise the curtain on the sportsbook counter, and turn the tables and chairs around the other way. It became a sports book again. It worked perfectly. Sports bettors, the serious ones, only want to get down (make a bet). They were not interested in the amenities—just take their money so they can try to win it back.
This was a gut shot to the expensive, elaborate casino sportsbooks and it was unsettling to the Gaming Control Board. How the hell could we outdo the bigger hotel casinos' sportsbooks. We didn’t even have a race book. A million dollar day, in midweek, what's going on there? All cash, no credit. Big bookmakers in the East and around the country certainly did more, but they were mostly credit. So you can imagine what the GCB was thinking. A little place like this handling handling that kind of money.
What was going on wasn't hard to figure out. We took big bets and lots of them. For every sports bet we took, we wrote a legitimate ticket and paid all appropriate taxes. The GCB eventually came in every day for awhile, set up a table and counted beans to their hearts’ content. They would go to work for the day, just like us. It reminded me of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog punching into the same time clock every morning in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
I'll never forget the day we opened. It’s a weekday during baseball season.The Cincinnati Reds are playing a day game, and some guy bet $60,000 on the Reds. Of course, I was used to bookmaking where you would at least try to get some money on the other side. It was our first day in business with no chance in hell of getting much on the other side. Joe says “don’t worry, just take it—we’ve got a well, ask him if he wants more." That made it pretty nice. It's easy to book when you don't have to worry about balancing the action. I don’t remember if the Reds won or lost but it didn’t matter, Joe just wanted the action. I learned a lot from Joe, especially about totals and how to move them for the greatest value.
By now, it became the Royal Casino that put up the most sought after numbers in Las Vegas. Most bettors and bookmakers respected our numbers because we took mostly sharp action. People would wait for us to open in the morning and monitor our numbers. So here's this little room on Convention Center Drive, packed full of people all day, every day. Serious gamblers looking for a weak spot in the early line and service guys waiting to send our line back East and around the country. Joe would give me the numbers in the morning, usually from his home. There were games he wanted to gamble on, so he'd shade them in a particular direction.
Once we put the line up, it was a race to be the first guy to the front door and get to the pay phones.They had every pay phone in the entire neighborhood mapped out. As soon as we put the line up, it was a stampede out of the place to get to one of the phones. No cell phones then. The guys would run out the door like we were having a fire drill. If somebody was looking at it and didn't know any better, he might have thought it was a bomb scare.
They had their cars parked at angles so they could peel away fast, like it was a bank robbery. It was the funniest thing, some of them would park so they were blocking the other guys to get a head start to a pay phone. It was like a circus, but it was very serious business getting a bet down before the odds changed.
One morning, a guy was working on patching the carpet or at least what was left of it. He's down on his hands and knees patching the carpet in front of the sports counter. I said, "Hey, buddy, we're opening up pretty soon. You might want to wait a while." He replied, "Oh, I'll be okay. I'm used to working around people." Of course, the poor guy was damn near trampled. He didn't realize what he was in for as he was crawling away on his hands and knees trying to save his life.
We hired Sam "The Plumber" Cagnino to help with our college basketball numbers. To be more accurate, Joe hired Sam to get his games. Sam was an uncanny college basketball handicapper, which was his only sport. Joe wanted to bet on Sam’s games, but he wanted Sam to write tickets also. Bad idea, Sam was a pencil and paper guy and had no chance to operate a ticket machine. None. Sam kept his basketball figures in an oversized, loose-leaf, beat-up notebook. He tracked hundreds of teams and kept his player figures, box scores, and updated power ratings in the smallest pencil entries possible. Any smaller and they’d be invisible. It’s an amazing workbook. I know because after Sam passed away, his wife gave it to me. She said Sam wanted me to have it. I’m honored that Sam "the Plumber" wanted me to be the caretaker of his life’s work. It’s a treasure I drag out when I attempt to tell people about pre-computer days.
Sam and his wife were a completely happy, compatible couple. She would go around the casinos betting for Sam. Their oldest son, Scott, would follow her undercover. She was a large lady and would be at least pick’em in a fight if someone tried to get Sam’s money. Being a large woman, Sam gave her a job to do one night. Sam told us, as if it was completely normal, that he had her sit outside on very windy Las Vegas night. He had her sit on their satellite dish base to keep it steady while he watched his beloved college basketball inside.
Gone
The first Super Bowl was played Jan. 15, 1967 in the LA Memorial Coliseum between the Packers and Chiefs.. The NFL and newer AFL weren’t yet merged. The two leagues and especially these two teams genuinely disliked each other. The Chiefs, owned by the lamar Hunt family, were the first team to pay their players what was then exorbitant salaries. By todays going rates they were still grossly underpaid. The NFL mantra was “the Hunts bought their team” whatever that meant. The Packers were publicly owned by the citizens of Green Bay and still are.
The underlying atmosphere behind Super Bowl 1 was a promoters dream. These players would have played the game for free just to get at each other. They almost did since the winner got $15,000 and the loser $7500. Vince Lombardi's Packers, -17 pt favorites, came through for their coach with a convincing 35-10 win. In the Trophy ceremony and press conference Lombardi wouldn’t knock the Chiefs till they hounded him into saying “OK we’re a better league.” The trophy today is named after Coach Lombardi.
Today’s kids won’t know a sports world that was a lot simpler, easier to watch and participate in with less showbiz and showboating. The self promoting pro influence is creeping into the college games and is slowly beginning to take hold in high schools. Screaming and pounding your chest after making a basket or tackle and mini end zone productions are glorified on TV. Soon if not already embedded in our kids vision of the games they play, this attitude will be as much a part of their game as discipline once was not so long ago.
Same with the Las Vegas race & sportsbooks. Millennials and younger will never know betting parlors that were not part of a hotel/casino. They once weren’t allowed, by regulation, in Las Vegas casinos. That regulation was changed in 1976 and all those nostalgic old, Spartan joints slowly disappeared one by one.
The characters who haunted those stand alone joints and the camaraderie that still exists among some of us old goats will be gone with us. Times change, change with them or get out of the way.