Time for something drastic?

By Jeff Haney

Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008 | 2 a.m.

After yet another appalling episode at a Las Vegas sports book, this one a Boyd Gaming joint, I’m ready to think the unthinkable.

State or federal lawmakers should consider doing away with legal sports betting in Nevada.

It would be a shame for Nevada sports books that conduct business in a professional and competent manner, as well as for sports gamblers.

But I’ve had it with unethical Las Vegas sports book operators and their shady dealings behind the counter.

Their cowardly actions, their lack of integrity and their irresponsibility reflect so poorly on the state’s biggest industry that it might be time to take such a drastic step.

I reached that conclusion this weekend, right about when my parlay-card betting slips were all but thrown back at me at the window.

Denied. Once again, I had to walk out of the casino having been thwarted in my attempt to make a bet on sports.

Forget for a moment how pathetic it is for a Las Vegas sports book to fear a couple of $100 parlay-card wagers.

Forget for a moment that the statewide casino “hold,” or win rate, on parlay cards for the 12-month period that ended July 31 was a staggering 32 percent. That’s higher than even the most horrific games on the casino floor — keno (26 percent casino hold rate) and Caribbean Stud (28 percent), according to the state Gaming Control Board.

The point is that the football games I had the nerve to actually try to gamble my money on were not off the betting board, nor had they been declared ineligible for parlay-card betting.

By rejecting my wagers after examining them, Boyd Gaming officials were giving themselves the undeserved luxury of accepting bets on one side of a football game while refusing wagers on the other side of the same game.

In other words, they were essentially dealing a “one-way” betting line, a clearly unethical move on the part of the bookmaker.

A one-way line is anathema to a properly run sports book.

It’s something you might expect to encounter from a dirty underworld bookie or in a banana republic rather than in Nevada, where sports betting takes place in a (supposedly) stringently regulated environment.

It’s also the same sort of chintzy stunt that prompted a Gaming Control Board investigation into the Harrah’s sports book this year (Las Vegas Sun, April 23).

Advocating a ban on legal sports betting carries some substantial implications to be sure.

I realize this position would align me with religious rightists such as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a notion I find repulsive.

That’s how strongly I believe unethical sports book operations such as Boyd Gaming and Harrah’s must be cleaned up or cleaned out.

This weekend’s unfortunate incident came less than a week after we pointed out Boyd Gaming was running the most blatantly dishonest advertisement in recent Las Vegas memory, in which it touted its parlay cards as “the best parlay cards on the planet.” In fact, they’re about average.

This, of course, is an affront to anyone who cares about either the gambling industry or the English language. It’s also unfair to rival sports book operations that actually do offer strong parlay cards — and are willing to book the action when customers bet into them.

The viability of the Nevada gambling industry is based on the concept that casino patrons, whether they’re tourists or residents of the state, can expect to get a fair shake.

Without that presumption the entire enterprise, along with huge swathes of the state’s economy, would be in danger of collapsing into rubble like a Wall Street investment bank.

When casinos offer sports betting lines but give themselves the option of accepting action on one side of the wager while rejecting action on the other side, it can give customers the impression that the game is rigged against them.

And that impression would be correct.

My opinion of elected public officials places them slightly below Saturday morning scamdicapper slime on the human evolutionary scale, so I harbor no high hopes they’re capable of taking any meaningful action against unethical sports books.

Still, I wonder if there are any Nevada politicians who:

A) grasp at least the rudiments of sports betting and therefore understand why the conduct of Boyd Gaming is ethically reprehensible, and B) are not in the pocket of Big Gaming.

I fully realize the odds against that particular two-team parlay coming in are astronomical.

So it might be up to Washington politicians, who currently have their hands full with more pressing crises.

But eventually, those too shall pass.

It’s conceivable federal lawmakers would then take another run at abolishing sports betting in Nevada.

If nothing else, ponder the fearsome daily double that one of the major political parties has trotted out for our consideration. It features 1) a candidate at the top of the ticket who has been known to rattle his saber regarding outlawing legal sports betting in Nevada, and 2) a running mate with fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

If that doesn’t give sports gambling proponents pause, I don’t know what would.

As a guy who’s vociferously pro-gambling — when it’s done right, when casinos treat customers fairly — this is a painful conclusion for me to reach.

Yet as long as ethically challenged sports book operations such as Harrah’s and Boyd Gaming continue to tarnish the reputation of Nevada, it’s time to do the previously inconceivable.

Consider getting rid of legal sports betting in the state altogether.