Thursday, February 25, 2010

LVRJ: Vegas Stop Helped Bolster NASCAR Betting in Sports Books

by Micah Roberts
Las Vegas Review-Journal

When Las Vegas sports books starting popping up in casinos in the late 1980s, the wagering menu offered to the public was already set thanks to a heavy dose of generational conditioning.


Many people had grown up knowing the nuances of baseball, football and basketball, so it was easy for folks to understand how to bet on them, either in sports books or with the corner bookie in their old hometowns.

Sports books just can't create their own events; they have to be live, credible events with a following to justify offering the odds, not to mention the time it takes to study the tendencies of the participants involved. Before the 1990s, booking sports was a meat-and-potatoes game with just the core team sports.

Then something strange happened. In 1994, people coming into Las Vegas books began asking for the weekly NASCAR races. Most of the books offered only the Daytona 500 and the open-wheel Indianapolis 500 as auto racing options.

Some books laughed at the notion of offering weekly odds on the races, usually with a punch line involving a fan stereotype -- something comedian Jeff Foxworthy might deliver. Other books embraced the idea and tried to get as much information as possible on the weekly NASCAR races to offer a fair line.

And why not?

Read More Here......

No comments: