Columnist Jeff Haney: BoDog president: Offshore books ‘will never, ever replace Las Vegas’

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004 | 10:04 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Wednesday. Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.

HANDICAPPER: Someone who studies and projects outcomes of sporting events. Often used to describe someone who sells his sports predictions as well.

JUICE: Special influence or connections used to secure a good job or position in the gaming industry. (When Buzz Daly says some sports book directors are "juiced in," he is suggesting they got their jobs not because of their bookmaking skills but because they have influential friends or relatives.)

OFFSHORE: General term for sports books, often Internet-based, not located in North America. Includes books in the Caribbean, Central America and elsewhere.

July 7 -- Future books for the World Series.

July 14 -- Games of the year in football.

July 21 -- Over/unders on wins in NFL season.

July 28 -- Larry Grossman's gambling show returns.

Today -- Handicappers convene at Mandalay Bay.

Next week -- Kenny White of LV Sports Consultants.

When the boss of a major offshore sports book was deciding where to conduct a two-day handicappers' conference, he settled on an unlikely site: the Las Vegas Strip.

That looks like a stunning upset, given the supposed rivalry between Las Vegas and offshore sports books such as BoDog, the sponsor of the convention held Thursday and Friday at Mandalay Bay.

A perception exists, after all, that offshore, Internet-based operations have knocked the wind out of Las Vegas sports betting with more extensive betting menus, higher limits, convenience and other blows to the solar plexus.

BoDog president Rob Gillespie, speaking during a break in the action at Mandalay Bay's convention center, downplayed such notions.

"We (offshore books) will never, ever replace Las Vegas," Gillespie said. "Not until we have the technology to start spitting pretty girls out of your hard drive and into your living room. I've been coming to Las Vegas to visit since I was 21, and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon."

Gillespie said he saw no irony in BoDog, based in Costa Rica, hosting the conference in Las Vegas rather than an island outpost, a Central American resort, or even his native Canada.

"There shouldn't be a rivalry between Vegas and us," Gillespie said. "I believe the market is big enough for everyone. Vegas has its place, and we have ours."

Conference officials also pointed out that while the Justice Department considers gambling on the Internet illegal, running a handicapping business in the United States is perfectly legal.

The conference was billed as an industry gathering, so some of the presentations focused on how professional handicappers -- specifically those who sell sports predictions -- can attract more business, spruce up their Web sites, and the like.

There was also plenty of discussion, though, on the future of sports betting, and how Las Vegas fits into that changing world.

The consensus: Las Vegas will likely remain a hot spot for sports bettors, even if it's no longer the center of the sports gambling universe. In fact, in the dot-com era, there may not be a geographic center of the sports gambling universe.

"There's a really weird micro-universe here in this town," said Peter Gold of the Web site Vegas Insider. "In Las Vegas, you have this job description called 'professional gambler' that you don't have in other cities. So egos get involved; people are concerned about bragging rights, who did better in which football (handicapping) contest.

"What they (handicappers) need to be thinking is, what do I have to offer the millions of people (sports bettors) out there (beyond Las Vegas), in the general public?"

Buzz Daly of Las Vegas, who publishes the betting magazine "Players' Choice," said he tries to encourage local gaming authorities to realize that many of their customers also patronize offshore sports books.

"Las Vegas needs to stop sticking its head in the sand," Daly said. "Some of these sports book guys (managers) are juiced-in fossils who want to pretend that offshores just are not there. Other guys that I deal with are more modern ... able to say, OK, they're here, fine. We'll deal with it."

Nationally known sports handicapper Marc Lawrence said the proliferation of sports betting and sports information has created a new crop of gamblers -- and oddsmakers -- who are much more savvy than they were a generation ago.

"In 1975, when I got started in this business, I thought it was pretty easy: Just pick home underdogs in the NFL and make a living at this," Lawrence said at the conference, which drew about 200 people, an estimated one-third of them from Las Vegas.

"Today, the line is made with the sharp guys (professional bettors) in mind first and foremost. You need to make changes to compete with oddsmakers who are as good, if not better, handicappers than many of us in this room. ... And in the next decade, the oddsmaker is going to be an even sharper handicapper than he is today."

A more educated sports bettor, however, can actually benefit a bookmaker, Gillespie said.

"If they're betting a favorite at 4 (points), and they continue to bet them at 4 1/2, 5 1/2, 6 ... it can become a freight train (resulting in one-sided action)," Gillespie said, "whereas with an educated audience, an extra half-point will stop the freight train. They will realize the value in the half-point and take the other side, helping to balance the action."

TV sports prognosticator Wayne Root, a Henderson resident, took Gillespie's notion that the market is "big enough for everyone" to its logical conclusion: He called on the United States to legalize sports betting and allow Nevada's corporate gaming giants to operate their own national online sports books.

"My advice to the government is legalize it, regulate it, tax it," Root said, appearing for a moment to invoke the spirit of Peter Tosh (if Tosh wore a silk handkerchief in his lapel pocket, that is). "Billions of dollars in revenue could be at stake."

Root asked why many states run lotteries or have legalized slot machines -- which he perceptively characterized as "forms of gambling fit for morons" -- but continue to eschew sports betting.

"For some reason sports gambling, where you have a shot (to win), where you have to be intelligent, where you have to study things and take a stand backing up your opinion, is considered 'bad,' " Root said.

BoDog's Gillespie said he too was mystified by what he called a "cultural bias" against sports betting in the United States.

"I have no idea," Gillespie said. "Maybe it goes back to 50 or 60 years ago and the (unsavory) guys who were running it back then. Maybe it's a remnant of that.

"Maybe perception lags reality."