Columnist Jeff Haney: NCAA Tourney carries bittersweet undertones

Wednesday, March 14, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Wednesday. Reach him at 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com

Well, this could be the last time.

This could be the last time.

Maybe the last time.

We don't know.

Las Vegas college basketball bettors are singing a poignant song here on the eve of the NCAA Tournament.

(That's right; it's still the eve of the tournament. No matter how the NCAA tries to spin it, Winthrop versus Northwestern State is a preliminary game, not an "opening round" game. Come on.)

It's no secret that a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill could render this the final year of legal wagering on the NCAA Tournament in Nevada sports books.

Given the enormous popularity of tournament betting, that would be a big setback for local books. Bettors wagered nearly $70 million on this year's Super Bowl in Nevada casinos, and the handle on the NCAA Tournament figures to rival or surpass that number.

With the betting-ban sword hanging overhead, bettors and sports books alike appear to be adopting a go-for-broke attitude.

"I think there is a sense of urgency," said Jonathan Jester, sports book director at the Las Vegas Club hotel-casino. "I've had people call here for reservations two months ago -- people from out of town who like to come in and bet the tournament -- and I had to tell them yeah, they can make a reservation, but there was no guarantee they'd be able to bet the games.

"And they said, 'Wow! What are you talking about?' They had no idea what was going on. I think it caught people who don't live in Las Vegas by surprise."

Like many Las Vegans, Jester is hoping a late effort by Nevada interests in Washington can send the betting-ban bill to the scrap heap. Meanwhile, he's enjoying what amounts to nearly a full week of Christmas mornings for college basketball gambling enthusiasts.

"This is my favorite four-day stretch of the year," Jester said. "The games start at 9:30 in the morning and go until 10 o'clock at night, and I'm here mostly the entire time. We have every game on TV in the book.

"If I wasn't sitting here behind the counter taking bets, I'd definitely be on the other side making them."

While Nevadans like to draw a parallel between Super Bowl betting and March Madness wagering, established offshore bookmakers -- with their wider customer base -- make a slightly different comparison.

"With the exception of World Cup soccer, this is our busiest time of the year," said Simon Noble, executive director and co-founder of Antigua-based sports book Intertops (intertops.com). "And since the World Cup only happens once every four years, this is really our busiest time year in and year out."

Intertops, which bills itself as the world's largest sports book in terms of individual wagers accepted, expects to take half a million bets on this year's NCAA Tournament.

"Last year we took 330,000 individual wagers on the tournament," said Noble, who has customers in more than 180 countries. "Our business has increased by 50 percent since then, so we're looking at probably 500,000 separate wagers this year."

While many of those bets come from North America, Noble said March Madness has become a truly global phenomenon.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "With the advent of satellite TV, basketball (betting) is becoming very popular in Europe and lots of other places as well. It's being shown everywhere, and for the most part if it's on TV, people are going to want to bet it."

Of course, Noble & Co. have the luxury of booking the NCAA Tournament without any of the angst caused by the betting-ban legislation.

"We don't want to go into all-out party mode if it turns out this is not the last year for (tournament betting)," the Las Vegas Club's Jester said. "It's a tough call. We're just playing it close to the vest and trying to stay optimistic."

But if the soundtrack for Las Vegas casinos this March is a bittersweet old Stones tune, the same cannot be said for offshore sports books. For them, a better fit might be ...

Hmm.

How about the Ben Folds Five chestnut "Battle of Who Could Care Less"?

"We'll continue booking college sports, just as we have always booked them," Intertops' Noble said, and you can almost see him shrug through the phone line, some four time zones away.

Offshore bookies seem to regard the college sports betting flap with a bemused interest, like a scientist peering through a microscope at a strange bug. Remember a composed Al Gore gazing down at a frenetic Ross Perot during those televised debates a few years ago? It might have been a contrived technique, but it was effective. And probably even sincere.

"I remember one of your senators asked why they are trying to penalize the 1 percent of bettors who wager legally, when the other 99 percent (of college sports betting) is going to continue anyway," Noble said. "No matter what happens, everybody else will still be offering the odds. It's what people want."

Noble added, "Hey, if table tennis became popular with the bettors, then we'd be booking table tennis."

"Anyone else would be a good result for us," he said.

At the Las Vegas Club, Jester said he has some exposure on UCLA, Kentucky, Iowa State and Maryland.

"Those are my big four," he said. "Anyone else wins, I can live with it."