Another Page of March History in a Las Vegas Sports Book

LAS VEGAS -- The NCAA tournament comes early here. Really early.

By 8:45 a.m. my friend Tardio, a 30-year-old, med-malpractice attorney from Nashville, and I are seated on cream colored couches in the stadium seating area above the Lagasse's Stadium sports book.

Directly in front of our seats in Lagasse's, which opened in September and is the newest sports book in Vegas, are 17 televisions, and a 25-foot projection screen television. We're logged in for a day of live in-game wagering on the PocketCasino, the dynamic wagering device that has changed the face of sports wagering since October and is debuting this year for the NCAA tournament.

Around us, the sports book is already packed, a collection of men between the ages of 26 and 45, wearing anything from suits to gym shorts and T-shirts. A large line of these men wraps around the front, gamblers getting in their bets in the final moments before Florida and BYU are set to tip-off to begin the 2010 tournament.

Our waitress, a hot girl wearing a white LaDainian Tomlinson jersey and black short shorts, arrives and inquires what we'd like to order. Henceforth, she will be known as Hot LaDainian or HL for short.

"Chicken nachos," I say.

"Before nine?" Tardio asks. He shakes his head. "I'll have a Coors Light."

We're seated on the third row of the grandstand. We're both hung over, our eyes bleary. Wednesday night, we gambled in the Hard Rock Casino until almost four in the morning. At one point we sat alongside a perfect 10, a blonde with an incredible body and huge pendulous breasts that threaten to upend the blackjack table should she make any sudden movements.

The blonde leaned across the table well after midnight. "Do me a favor," she drawled to Tardio, who struggled to keep his eyes on her own eyes, "I'm a huge a Washington fan. Will you root for Washington for me?"

On Friday, Washington plays against Marquette.

Tardio nodded. "Root for Washington? Sure." Then he said under his breath so only I could hear it. "I will also marry you. Right. Now."

Welcome to opening weekend in Las Vegas, a college basketball fan's dream brought to life.

A few hours later, back in Lagasse's Stadium sports book with our Pocketcasinos in our laps, we do what anyone else does on four hours' sleep as the NCAA tournament tips off, we become some of the first sports fans in NCAA tourney history to commence betting on whether Florida and BYU players will make free throws.

Of course, we do.

So let's dive in for a day spent living in the future of sports wagering.

1. I place my first bet on the PocketCasino taking Florida +5 for $20.

A few minutes earlier, I've put $200 on the device, which I'll be able to wager with throughout the day's games. If, at any point, I run out of funds, I can simply go back to the PocketCasino desk and add more money to my account. When you're finished gambling, you simply turn back in the device and settle up with your printout of bets.

If you want to read more on the PocketCasino (pictured) specifics, you can read my article here.

2. Next to me, Tardio curses.

He's taken Villianova -19 and CBS' Jim Brown is reporting that Jay Wright will be holding out star guard Scottie Reynolds for a "minor teaching point."

"Nineteen points," says Tardio, "is not worth a minor teaching point."

This will be the worst bet of the day for either of us as Villanova wins by just three ... in overtime.

3. I bet $5 on whether BYU center Brandon Davies will make two free throws to commence my free-throw wagering.

I don't know anything about Brandon Davies at all, but the odds on a double-miss are much higher, so I roll the dice. Later, I will learn that Davies is a freshman whose idol is Dwight Howard. But for me, he'll always be the player who introduced me to the future of sports gaming.

Davies sinks both, and $5 disappears from my account. Even still I feel like I've seen the future of sports gaming. Gone are the days when sports gaming was a non-interactive venture, you take a team for points and wait to see what's going to happen.

Cantor Gaming, which developed the PocketCasino, has altered everything, taking a static event and turning into a constantly evolving gambling marketplace, where odds change every few seconds as the flow of the game dictates.

For people like me, 30-year-olds who live in a constant Twitter and Facebook saturated updating world, the idea that gambling is a static event will eventually seem as foreign as a time when we didn't have the Internet at our fingertips or DVRs on our television.

4. I receive an e-mail from a vice-president of my publishing house about his NCAA bracket pool that features most of his company.

In it, the vice president mistakenly refers to the tie-breaker rules for the championship game as a "tit-breaker."

Two minutes later, this email arrives, sent to the entire company, "Sorry tie-breaker."

5. One of the greatest things about the PocketCasino? How it turns just about every free-throw attempt into a major event in the sports book.

If I were watching this game at home on my DVR, I generally would fast-forward through the free throws unless it's late in a game. Here, with many players wagering on the PocketCasino, each attempt has its own cheering section.

Some have bet for a player to make both, others have bet for a split, and still others have bet for double misses.

6. I meet former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian.

Tarkanian is signing free autographs outside Lagasse's Stadium from 9-11 this morning. Wearing a burgundy turtleneck he sits at a table for two hours. Later, he comes inside the sports book, sits down on a couch on the front row, two rows in front of us, and watches games on the big screen.

Later that afternoon, I get the chance to interview him.

7. There are two sizes of PocketCasino, the large tablet-sized that I have, and the smaller, iPhone sized model, which Tardio has.

Alec Kornbluh, the 36-year-old property management manager for PocketCasino, informs us that his company has been working on the devices for five years. There were many procedural details to take care of: getting licensed, conducting field trials, convincing the gaming authorities that the data carried on the devices would be safe, all of these details occupied a tremendous amount of time.

Now that the devices are here, Kornbluh says that the response of mostly younger gamers, like Tardio and myself, has him convinced that, "These devices are the future of sports gaming. The younger generation of gamblers wants to be interactive, they don't just want to place a bet and then sit around to wait and see whether or not they won."

Already, there have been big winners who have gambled on the devices. This fall, Cantor Gaming paid out $500,000 in winnings for a gambler betting on a single football game. "He found odds that he liked, and he just bet as much as he could," says Kornbluh.

Presently, the largest bet you can make on any single wager is $1,000, but you can make multiple wagers of that same amount provided you click and make a new bet. Those new bets will likely have changed odds, but they can still be beneficial to you.

8. At this point, a tutorial on how the PocketCasino works.

It's pretty straightforward. As you watch a game, the scoreboard is at the top of your screen. Directly beneath it is a running list of options, a constantly shifting money-line, spread, and over/under.

Additionally, when free throws occur, a new screen pops up with three options for each free-throw attempt.

It's relatively straight-forward, but that doesn't mean there is complete protection from human idiocy.

Cue: the idiot, me.

Throughout the Florida game, I've been rooting on the Gators to win +5, That is, as the underdog, the Gators can win or lose by four points and I'm still in the money. For the final five minutes of regulation, I seem to be in perfect shape.

But BYU storms back and sends the game into overtime, meaning the Gators now have a chance to lose by more than five.

I curse.

Worse, Florida misses a shot at the end of the first overtime, double overtime ensues, and the Gators end up losing by seven, 99-92.

I'm crushed.

The gambling gods have forsaken me.

Only, my PocketCasino suddenly ticks upward.

Yep, I've inadvertently bet $20 on BYU -5 and actually won the bet.

I hit the wrong button and had been rooting against my own betting interest throughout the entire game.

With early users of the device making their first few bets, I don't think this is uncommon. That's why I'd start off wagering with small amounts until you've familiarized yourself.

9. Sitting next to us are three south Florida residents, Bill Heller, a Florida grad, Jeff Bross, from N.C. State, and Eric Mathes from Florida Atlantic -- the alma mater of Carrot Top.

"Make sure you put that Carrot Top thing in there," Heller says.

"It's true," Mathes says, "but I didn't know him."

All three guys, who have been taking a guy's trip to Vegas for the opening day of the NCAA tournament for the past seven years, have the PocketCasino and are gambling with it for the first time.

"This thing is awesome," Bross says, "just awesome."

10. Confession time: Tardio and I are sharing a sort of loveseat to watch these games.

It isn't a couch because our feet are both up off the ground, stretched out in front of us, a couch meets a bed. We're wedged close together in a couch/bed that is either built for one man or a man and his Vegas hooker. Occasionally our knees touch.

"Don't mention how close we had to sit to watch these games," Tardio says.

"I won't," I say.

11. While the PocketCasino is undoubtedly awesome, it isn't perfect.

Some free-throw shooters aren't included, and other times the game moves so quickly it's hard to get your bets in before the first attempt.

Kornbluh informs me that the device is perfect for football, where there is more time between plays. Basketball is so fast-moving that you have to be on top of the action. To be honest, it's much easier to bet on the free throws that you know are coming after a television timeout. These get much more of the gambling action.

In the rush, several times the screen says my bet is accepted and then later the bet doesn't show up. I'm not wagering much on the free throws, just $5 an attempt, but it's frustrating to think you've made a wager and then have it not clear in time.

Also, and this is a fairly noticeable glitch, the screen allows you to bet for someone to go 0-for-2 on one-and-one free-throw situations.

Plainly, this is an eventuality that could never pay off. Yet the odds are there and some gamblers still take them. On the one hand, you could say that anyone dumb enough to take that bet deserves to lose, on the other hand, with multiple games going at once, you don't always have the audio to know whether or not a free throw attempt is a two-shot foul, double bonus, or whether a team is still in the one-and-one.

That's probably a programming glitch that needs to be ironed out.

Certainly, Tardio agrees.

"I just bet 0-2," he says confidently.

"It's one-and-one," I say.

"F--- me," he replies.

12. Also, the batteries on the devices are only good for 1.5 hours.

That should get better in the future, but according to Kornbluh, Apple has bought up all the long battery devices for the release of the iPad and they haven't even been able to test all the batteries on their product.

Since a basketball game lasts for at least two hours, you could find yourself in the midst of a furious wagering session, have your device shut off, and need to spend five minutes at minimum to get the device recharged. During that time the market of a game could completely change and you could be caught flat-footed, unable to adjust to the changing dynamics and hedge your bets, which is the reason you have the device in the first place.

There is also talk of potentially putting the devices onto each individual's own iPhone via an application, but it has to pass regulatory hurdles. Primarily via establishing where an individual is located, since sports wagering is only legal in the state of Nevada.



13. Notwithstanding a few glitches, as the day progresses, I begin to get the hang of the device.

I even started to feel like I could make bets that actually favored me.

This is especially the case when you're dynamically gambling on a team you've watched play quite a few times and are familiar with the team's tendencies.

During Vandy-Murray State, Commodore forward Steve Tchiengang, who I've watched play approximately 20 times this season, steps to the free-throw line.

I know that Tchiengang is around a 60 percent free-throw shooter.

Yet, amazingly to me, I can bet $5 that Tchiengang will miss both free throws and the double misses are paying at almost 10-1.

So Tardio and I both jump on the opportunity.

The first shot clangs off the rim.

So does the second shot.

We cheer loudly in our seats even though we're both rooting for Vandy to win.

Bang, my most successful wager thus far, I net $46 for the double misses.

14. Later on, I bet $5 that Vandy point guard Jermaine Beal, nicknamed Dollar Beal, will make two free throws.

Beal is a great free throw shooter, over 80 percent so the payoff is small.

My payoff for risking this money?

$1.58 in winnings.

15. I take Vandy -1.5 midway through the second half against Murray State.

It's only a $20 wager, but taking the game at this point gets me a better line than everyone who bet before the game when Vandy tipped off as a 2.5-point favorites.

I feel like the 'Dores are likely to win by 2.

None of these instant gambling options matter when Murray State drains a jumper over two flailing Vandy defenders to win, 66-65.

The sports book explodes in noise. March Madness has truly arrived, the first huge upset, relative to seeds at least, of the day.

Tardio and I are both Vandy alums. "Damn," he says, "damn."

16. It occurs to me that it is 1 in the afternoon and I've already been watching basketball for five hours.

I take a step outside into the fresh air. It's sunny in Las Vegas, approaching 80 degrees. Squinting, I watch people passing by on the street. Don't they realize, I wonder, that we're in the middle of the opening round of the NCAA tournament?

How can they be doing anything else?

17. Back inside, the loudest roar of the sportsbook thus far.

As the final seconds run off Baylor-Sam Houston State, with Baylor up 9 -- that's .5 less than the final line here of Baylor -9.5 -- the crowd begins to scream.

"Foul him, damnit, foul him," yells a portly man in eyeglasses leaning over a railing. "Foul him!"

The crowd's roar continues to build as Sam Houston State lets the clock run out and Baylor dribbles away the final 25 seconds of the game.

The bespectacled man hanging over the balcony throws down his betting slips, letting them slowly rain to the floor. "Why?" he wails, "did you not foul him?"

18. After a break from gambling, I return with a vengeance.

During Northern Iowa-UNLV, I take Northern Iowa on the money-line bet, and then, as it extends the lead in the second half, I attempt to take UNLV +7.5.

But the Rebels score just as I make my bet, and the line adjusts before it gets locked in.

This is where you can do well in dynamic wagering, at projecting a likely outcome, it's my belief that Northern Iowa will win by about two, and taking advantage of an excessive line by laying money on the other team offers me an opportunity to make money on both sides of the game.

This is an option, that to be fair, has never existed before for sports fans. And it's revolutionary.

Tardio and I are having so much fun we can barely contain ourselves.

"We are doing this every year," he say, "every year."

19. Up about $50, thanks to my Tchiengang wager mostly, I take advantage of the dynamic wagering line to get Washington, formerly a two-point underdog when the game began, at +7.5.

The Huskies, who fell behind by double digits are in the midst of a run that will eventually erase the deficit. I jump on board the momentum bandwagon -- I can feel it watching the game -- and lay $20 on Washington.

I've taken the same team as the people who bet before the game, Washington, yet I've improved my chances by gaining 5.5 points.

Of course the Huskies come back to win, leaving me wishing I'd taken the money-line bet as well.

20. Now for the catch, the guys next to us who have been coming to Vegas for seven years let the guy sitting next to them look over one of their devices.

Their neighbor is fascinated by the PocketCasino and wants to play around with it.

On the security front, we each have personal login numbers plus passwords. As if that weren't enough the devices log themselves off if they aren't in use for long. (A screen prompt appears with a ticking clock beginning at 30 seconds that requires you to touch it to keep the device on.) All of this is designed to keep someone who isn't you from wagering on your device.

But while checking out the PocketCasino the neighbor makes an error, he bets $1,000, the maximum amount allowed, on the money-line for Texas-Wake Forest. He takes the under on 146.5.

Now, I question how someone could make an error like that since you have to hit confirm bet and input the amount, but the neighbor claimed the bet was an error and there's no reason to believe that he would have intentionally bet on someone else's device. Especially since he immediately agreed to make good should he lose. The guys next to us attempted to get the bet removed, but the casino wouldn't do it.

The Texas-Wake Forest game goes into overtime with both teams tied at 68, a full 10 points below the under. But in overtime Wake triumphs 81-80, well over the 146.5 wager.

So the inadvertent bettor pays off his loss, 10 $100 bills.

Ouch.

Like I said before, you are likely to make an error the first few times you bet -- hell, I did -- but I don't think most people would unintentionally place a wager. Especially not for the maximum bet. Even still, that has to be a concern for the future, because undoubtedly those who are not familiar with the touchscreen device or the immediacy of the decision-making required, could make errors.

21. Now comes the Tennessee-San Diego State game, featuring the team I know best of all, the Vols.

I've watched the Vols play every televised game this season, in excess of 30 times.

The final line on Tennessee-San Diego State was Vols -3.

At this point, the final game of the night, I know the devices pretty well and I also know the Vols well. I know that Tennessee has a tendency all season to start slow in the first half.

So I calmly wait for San Diego State to take the early lead, which the Aztecs do, at 14-10. At this point, the line on my PocketCasino has dropped to Vols -1.5. I leap at this line, betting $50, my largest wager of the night on the Vols to win by more than 1.5.

Later the line will drop to Vols -1, but that's the lowest it goes all night.

As I nervously wait on the game's outcome, I do well betting on the Vols' free throws, winning twice with Bobby Maze going 2-for-2 from the line and even, once, make two wagers on the same free throw.

With Vol forward J.P. Prince at the line shooting a one-and-one, I make two bets, first that Prince will make both, a payoff of $4.50 on a $5.00 bet and second that Prince will hit 1-of-2, a payoff of $13 on a $5 bet.

Of course, as noted above, there is also an option for Prince to miss two free throws, but since this is a one-and-one, that's an impossibility. (Note: if this double miss actually credits a miss as the front-end of a one-and-one, I rescind this criticism. But it still seems as if the screen should say so on one-and-one's instead of saying 0-for-2.)

My reasoning on the double bets? At worst, I lose .50 cents and at best, I make $8.

Prince sinks both and I lose .50 cents.

But as the game gets closer, eventually I give up betting on free throws, abandon my device, and move to directly in front of the television, as if my proximity to the big screen offers a truer picture of what happens in the game. I am a college basketball moth drawn unto the March Madness flame.

I'm so nervous I can barely breathe. With Georgetown's upset loss earlier in the day, win and the Vols will play a 14 seed for a trip to the Sweet 16.

The Vols win by three, 62-59, and I exult amid the catcalls all around me. By three? That's exactly what the market expected all along, no one won.

"Damn," says an older man, standing beside me, "we pushed."

"Nope," I say, "I got the Vols -1.5."

"Where in hell did you get that line?" he asks, scrunching up his face and looking at me as if I'm crazy.

I point down to my PocketCasino, "The future," I say.