Vegas braces for spending madness
Look out, Super Bowl. March Madness is gaining on you – at least by some Las Vegas measures.
College basketball’s frenzied free-for-all for the men’s national title draws sports fans, fills hotel rooms and attracts wagering dollars with all the gusto usually associated with the NFL’s marquee game, according to gaming industry experts and figures.
To keep pace with the undeniable nexus between the tournament and gambling, the NCAA is continuing on a relatively new path of using Las Vegas casinos as a primary resource to deal with potential betting problems.
“Nothing’s bigger than the first four days of the tournament,” MGM Mirage sports book director Robert Walker said. “It’s like having a pro football championship four days in a row but with a lot more excitement.”
In truth, weighing the Super Bowl against the NCAA tournament is far from a perfect comparison. The former is a single-day, two-team event, whereas the latter is spread over nearly three weeks and involves 65 schools.
Yet the mad dash for the national championship, especially those four days that make up the first two rounds, draws throngs to Vegas’ sports books and is clearly the engine that drives a wagering enthusiasm rivaling even the Super Bowl’s gigantic betting appeal.
For instance, the most recent NFL title game between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears yielded nearly a $13 million win for Nevada casinos statewide. Last year’s March win total for all basketball (college and pro, state figures don’t distinguish) was more than $20 million. But since the next-highest monthly total for all basketball was just $7 million, it’s reasonable to conclude that at least $13 million (and probably more) was wagered on the college tournament.
None of that escapes the notice of the NCAA, which always has been concerned about the potentially corrupting influence of gambling on its games.
Last year, the association took a decidedly different tack in dealing with the gaming industry. A few years ago, the NCAA, along with Arizona Sen. John McCain, made an unsuccessful try to prohibit wagering on college sports at Vegas casinos. But last year, the association sent observers to Las Vegas to work cooperatively with the casinos to learn more about the mechanics of sports gambling.
“We’ve had relationships with Las Vegas in the past, so this wasn’t entirely new,” NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said. “But this did re-establish the relationship, so it is a new era. Both sides have a common goal (in making sure the games are honest). The (reasons) for both parties (are) different, but we do have the same objective.”
The gaming industry long has stressed that it needs honest games to have a healthy business. And even if every Nevada casino stopped taking bets on athletic events, there would still be a highly active – and unregulated – offshore Internet gambling industry whose revenues, by all accounts, dwarf those of legal sports books.
Casinos keep track of what’s happening in the cyberbetting world, and that information can be valuable to anyone concerned about the integrity of the games.
MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman recalled a congressional delegation visiting Vegas sports book operations. Part of what the delegation saw, he said, was a series of computer screens that monitor offshore betting.
“That’s when the light went on that for all the publicity that Nevada gets, we represent a drop in the bucket (in sports wagering),” Feldman said. “But at the same time, we’re the only legal portal into which one can see what’s happening.”
Meanwhile, Las Vegas’ sports books are bracing for their most frenetic time of year.
Overall, March is one of Las Vegas’ busiest months. Last year, that month had the second-highest average room rate for the year. The two March weekends that coincided with the first, second and regional rounds of the NCAA tournament were among the top 12 for room occupancy.