Jeff Haney on the latest head-to-head betting contest

Monday, June 5, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

The city's most respected professional gamblers will go head-to-head this fall in a $50,000, winner-take-all football handicapping contest sponsored by the Leroy's chain of sports books.

Fezzik (one name only, please), an all-around "advantage player" who specializes in sports betting, and Nick Bogdanovich, former sports book director at several major casinos, have each agreed to put up $25,000 of their own money to compete.

The format of the promotion, Leroy's spokesman Jimmy Vaccaro said, was based on the inaugural "Beat Boston" competition, a college basketball handicapping contest held last winter that pitted Las Vegas professional gambler Alan Boston against Alabama sports handicapper Brent Crow.

The Leroy's "Money Talks" contest, in which 16 invitees compete in a single-elimination football handicapping tournament, will also return for a second season this fall, Vaccaro said.

"What we're finding out with these contests is that they're reaching huge audiences," Vaccaro said. "It's something where we can take it and really run with it."

In the college basketball contest, Boston, backed by Leroy's, ponied up $30,000, and Crow, backed by an online sports book, put up $20,000. Given the winner-take-all format of the contest, that made Boston a de facto 3-2 favorite, though there was no sanctioned betting on the outcome as per Nevada gaming regulations.

Making six selections a week, Crow went 25-17 (60 percent) against the point spread to upend Boston (22-20, 52 percent) and collect the $50,000 prize - or 50 "dimes," in gambling parlance.

The contest pairing Fezzik and Bogdanovich, as yet unnamed ("Beat Nick," with a logo incorporating berets and bongos?), will tweak the Beat Boston rules a little. Each man will make six picks against the spread, including a best bet, with each winning selection - including the best bet - worth one contest point. (In Beat Boston, the best bet was worth 1 1/2 points.) The best bet record will be used only as a tiebreaker.

The competition will take place each Friday night at a casino to be announced, Vaccaro said. College and NFL games are in play.

"Both of these guys are legitimate handicappers who bet a lot of their own money at the windows," said Vaccaro, a longtime oddsmaker and former boss at the Mirage, Barbary Coast and other properties.

Bogdanovich won last year's Money Talks contest, collecting the top prize of $40,000, and won $5,000 in cash plus $5,000 for charity in a 2005 college basketball handicapping contest sponsored by Leroy's. He formerly ran the sports books at Binion's Horseshoe, the Stratosphere and Mandalay Bay and was a manager at the Golden Nugget.

Both contestants agreed that a proper betting line on the Fezzik vs. Bogdanovich pairing would be "pick 'em," meaning evenly matched - even though Fezzik sustained a losing season in the NFL last year, according to picks posted on his Web site (fezziksplace.com).

"If either one of us ever went into the 'plus-money' (meaning an underdog on that hypothetical betting line), it wouldn't last long," said Fezzik, a former insurance company executive in Los Angeles who left the corporate world for full-time gambling about six years ago.

For this year's Money Talks tournament, 22 people have expressed interest in putting up the $5,000 entry fee to compete in one of the 16 slots, Vaccaro said. Leroy's will juice the pot with another $20,000, creating a prize pool of $100,000 - a nice overlay for the participants. First prize is $80,000, with $20,000 going to the runner-up.

The Money Talks event will be featured on the "Leroy's Sports Hour" weekday afternoon radio show (2 p.m.-3 p.m., KENO 1460-AM), Vaccaro said.

"The interest has been unbelievable," Vaccaro said. "One thing's for sure - people like to be recognized. They like that notoriety."