This just echos what many of the experienced posters here have been saying about sports bettting in Vegas and the corporate mentality.
December 26, 2005
Columnist Jeff Haney: A look at the big picture in sports gaming with Las Vegas novelist Paul Czuchra
Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Monday, Friday (gaming) and Wednesday (poker). Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.
•••
His experience at the University of Chicago -- where he wrote a master's thesis as well as a doctoral dissertation -- taught him to look at the big picture, Paul Czuchra says.
Today, more than 25 years after he moved to Las Vegas from the Midwest to pursue a career in the sports betting industry, Czuchra has some concerns about the big picture of his chosen field.
"The industry is really hanging by a thread," Czuchra said of Nevada-style legal sports betting.
Some major casinos "are not really enamored of sports betting," Czuchra said. "They figure they have to have it available, but the only reason some places have a sports book is because they know if they don't, their casino customers will walk across the street to make their bets there."
You might say Big Gaming views sports betting as a necessary evil. Czuchra has a more colorful phrase for it.
"Sports betting is the unwanted stepchild of the gaming business," Czuchra said.
Czuchra broke into the business under legendary bookmaker Sonny Reizner at the old Castaways on the Strip, and later ran an independent oddsmaking consulting firm for many years.
Now in his 60s, Czuchra still puts in some hours behind the betting counter at the Barbary Coast sports book.
But he devoted much of his time over the past five years to writing a sports betting-oriented novel called "The Oddsmakers" ($20, Publish America), which is set in Las Vegas around the time that big corporations were starting to take over the city, marking the end of a more freewheeling era for old-style bettors and bookies.
* * *
Czuchra drew on his experiences in the business in writing "The Oddsmakers," and that includes the events surrounding the book's central incident, which has potentially scandalous consequences.
The novel's small details -- characters, places and scenes from a bygone Las Vegas -- are also based on real life, Czuchra said.
"I tried to include a number of characters that are the kind you just don't see anymore," Czuchra said in an interview at the Orleans. "A lot of them, they might not be the type of people you'd want to be friends with, but they are unique people."
During the period in which Czuchra was getting started in the industry -- the late 1970s into the 1980s -- Las Vegas was indisputably the center of sports wagering. This was well before the advent of widespread Internet use and offshore sports books.
"It was so unique," Czuchra said. "There was this one particular spot in the entire world where you were allowed to do this one certain thing -- bet on sports."
When Congress was making noise about trying to outlaw gambling on college sports in Nevada a couple of years ago, Czuchra said, it boggled his mind. Here was the final piece of evidence, if any more was needed, that an era was over.
While slots and other forms of casino gambling were being legalized across the nation, politicians were trying to outlaw sports betting, which Czuchra considers a thinking person's game.
"I can't think of any other form of gambling where Congress wants to put it out of business," he said.
In a fictionalized but not implausible incident in "The Oddsmakers," the NCAA organizes pickets to protest betting on college sports.
"Never before had picketing on Las Vegas Boulevard been directed at gambling itself," Czuchra writes. "It was tantamount to atheists entering St. Peter's Basilica to protest the Pope's celebration of Christmas mass."
•••
Given his propensity to look at the big picture, Czuchra doesn't succumb to the temptation of seeing his early days in sports betting as a golden age in which every aspect of the business was perfect.
In some respects, sports gamblers are better off today.
When Czuchra entered the field, bookmakers would routinely wait until football's regular season ended before they took any bets on college basketball games.
Odds on parlay cards were "really bad," Czuchra said.
And there were very few propositions, or offbeat wagering opportunities, on the betting boards -- although Reizner, Czuchra's old boss who died in 2002, did a lot to change that. Reizner is remembered as an innovative bookmaker who relished thinking up creative props.
"Still, overall, back then bookies had a little more flair, a little less fear of taking bets," Czuchra said. "The mob, or whoever ran the place, wasn't afraid of taking a gamble. "There was a much different attitude. Now it's all so bottom line-oriented."
Yet the more things change, the more the crux of sports gambling stays the same, Czuchra said.
"People are always mouthing off, whether it's sports or politics," he said. "But if you don't put a dollar behind it, your opinion isn't worth any more than air."
December 26, 2005
Columnist Jeff Haney: A look at the big picture in sports gaming with Las Vegas novelist Paul Czuchra
Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Monday, Friday (gaming) and Wednesday (poker). Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.
•••
His experience at the University of Chicago -- where he wrote a master's thesis as well as a doctoral dissertation -- taught him to look at the big picture, Paul Czuchra says.
Today, more than 25 years after he moved to Las Vegas from the Midwest to pursue a career in the sports betting industry, Czuchra has some concerns about the big picture of his chosen field.
"The industry is really hanging by a thread," Czuchra said of Nevada-style legal sports betting.
Some major casinos "are not really enamored of sports betting," Czuchra said. "They figure they have to have it available, but the only reason some places have a sports book is because they know if they don't, their casino customers will walk across the street to make their bets there."
You might say Big Gaming views sports betting as a necessary evil. Czuchra has a more colorful phrase for it.
"Sports betting is the unwanted stepchild of the gaming business," Czuchra said.
Czuchra broke into the business under legendary bookmaker Sonny Reizner at the old Castaways on the Strip, and later ran an independent oddsmaking consulting firm for many years.
Now in his 60s, Czuchra still puts in some hours behind the betting counter at the Barbary Coast sports book.
But he devoted much of his time over the past five years to writing a sports betting-oriented novel called "The Oddsmakers" ($20, Publish America), which is set in Las Vegas around the time that big corporations were starting to take over the city, marking the end of a more freewheeling era for old-style bettors and bookies.
* * *
Czuchra drew on his experiences in the business in writing "The Oddsmakers," and that includes the events surrounding the book's central incident, which has potentially scandalous consequences.
The novel's small details -- characters, places and scenes from a bygone Las Vegas -- are also based on real life, Czuchra said.
"I tried to include a number of characters that are the kind you just don't see anymore," Czuchra said in an interview at the Orleans. "A lot of them, they might not be the type of people you'd want to be friends with, but they are unique people."
During the period in which Czuchra was getting started in the industry -- the late 1970s into the 1980s -- Las Vegas was indisputably the center of sports wagering. This was well before the advent of widespread Internet use and offshore sports books.
"It was so unique," Czuchra said. "There was this one particular spot in the entire world where you were allowed to do this one certain thing -- bet on sports."
When Congress was making noise about trying to outlaw gambling on college sports in Nevada a couple of years ago, Czuchra said, it boggled his mind. Here was the final piece of evidence, if any more was needed, that an era was over.
While slots and other forms of casino gambling were being legalized across the nation, politicians were trying to outlaw sports betting, which Czuchra considers a thinking person's game.
"I can't think of any other form of gambling where Congress wants to put it out of business," he said.
In a fictionalized but not implausible incident in "The Oddsmakers," the NCAA organizes pickets to protest betting on college sports.
"Never before had picketing on Las Vegas Boulevard been directed at gambling itself," Czuchra writes. "It was tantamount to atheists entering St. Peter's Basilica to protest the Pope's celebration of Christmas mass."
•••
Given his propensity to look at the big picture, Czuchra doesn't succumb to the temptation of seeing his early days in sports betting as a golden age in which every aspect of the business was perfect.
In some respects, sports gamblers are better off today.
When Czuchra entered the field, bookmakers would routinely wait until football's regular season ended before they took any bets on college basketball games.
Odds on parlay cards were "really bad," Czuchra said.
And there were very few propositions, or offbeat wagering opportunities, on the betting boards -- although Reizner, Czuchra's old boss who died in 2002, did a lot to change that. Reizner is remembered as an innovative bookmaker who relished thinking up creative props.
"Still, overall, back then bookies had a little more flair, a little less fear of taking bets," Czuchra said. "The mob, or whoever ran the place, wasn't afraid of taking a gamble. "There was a much different attitude. Now it's all so bottom line-oriented."
Yet the more things change, the more the crux of sports gambling stays the same, Czuchra said.
"People are always mouthing off, whether it's sports or politics," he said. "But if you don't put a dollar behind it, your opinion isn't worth any more than air."
