VEGAS BOOKMAKING GETTING MORE AGGRESSIVE? THE ZIG ZAG THEORY, SPECIALIZATION, BASEBALL, THE DERBY, AND SOME IMPORTANT STUFF, TOO.

By Kevin O’Neill

Before getting on to our stuff….

What can we say about the late Pat Tillman, who gave up a multi-million dollar NFL contract to enlist and serve with the Army Rangers in Iraq and Afghanistan, other than that he was a true American hero who personifies the sacrifices being made by members of the military as they fight the good fight against terrorism? For a taste of what Tillman was all about check out the video of an interview with him shortly after September 11, 2001 at http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cardinals/tillman/tillman_tribute.html under the “multimedia” heading. Tillman said what many of us were saying at the time. What made him different is that he had the commitment and fortitude to follow it up with actions that buttressed his beliefs. Pat Tillman is a true hero.

What kind of people was Tillman fighting against? From an oddly ignored follow up story to the Madrid train bombings in the London newspaper The Telegraph…

“The body of a police special forces officer who died when Islamic terrorists blew themselves up in Madrid was taken from its grave, mutilated and burnt yesterday.

The coffin and body of special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras were pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery in Carabanchel and pushed 1,000 yards in a wheelbarrow before being doused with petrol and set alight.

The body was found with a pick driven into its head and a spade dug into its chest….”

Enough of the important stuff. On to our little corner world….

Vegas sports betting is dwarfed by the action, offerings, and importance of the offshore world and has been for several years. But a couple of Vegas properties seem to be willing to allow bettors to take a little bit more of a shot at them. Those who have purchased the Hilton have hired Jay Kornegay away from the Imperial Palace as Executive Director of Race and Sports for their property. Kornegay was known for being aggressive in offering a wide array of proposition bets, particularly on the Super Bowl. While this is being hailed by some as proof that the Hilton (with their name likely to change soon) will be booking more aggressively, Vegas players tell us that Kornegay has always built in substantial juice into his props and more importantly, one bettor we respect tells us that “his limits at the IP were a joke.” Of course any sports book manager’s wagering limits and betting menu will be a function of his superiors, but maybe Kornegay’s hiring indicates that there’s a good chance the Hilton will be taking sports betting more seriously.

A more welcome development in Vegas is the newly risk tolerant direction that the Golden Nugget sports book is taking since the purchase of that property by Travelscape founders Tim Poster and Tom Breitling, a pair of 34-year olds who made their millions by selling their online travel company to Expedia. Poster and Breitling have hired Nick Bogdanovich, an unusually aggressive bookmaker. Bogdanovich formerly ran Binion’s sports book when it was a high limit venue, and moved on to “all comers’ bookmaking at the Stratosphere, which he left after getting pummeled with Rams money the year they won the Super Bowl. A later Rams game had something to do with Bogdanovich being fired by Mandalay Bay despite grinding out profits for their sports book. A miscommunication with casino hosts allowed Charles Barkley to win over a million dollars on the Patriots Super Bowl upset in 2002 with a money line bet made on credit, a definite no-no in Nevada sports betting circles. By hiring such a risk tolerant bookmaker, it is clear that the Golden Nugget has every intention of being a meaningful sports book, something that is largely lacking in Nevada, and is even in dwindling supply offshore.

Interesting that the Nugget will no longer be networked with any other books, rather they will be making their own numbers. If nothing else, having a fresh set of numbers to shoot at will benefit our long-suffering Vegas colleagues, who often find themselves with less of a betting menu to attack than the guy in Dubuque with four or five online accounts.

One of the reasons that Vegas is skittish about sports betting is due to the damage that can be done in a short period of time by people who can exploit weaknesses in the line. Sports are not like slot machines with their fixed rate of return. For example, our baseball season is off to a promising start with our highly specialized service. In baseball we focus on nothing but over/unders, and the hard work of our baseball team has rewarded our subscribers, who suffered their first day under .500 on Thursday April 22nd. We went over two weeks without a day any worse than splitting out / losing juice to start the season. When I speak of our baseball team, a private handicapper (who must remain nameless due to his status in another industry) does almost all the heavy lifting (I dabble in the process) in determining our baseball selections. Heading into the baseball action of Sunday, April 25th we are 59 games over .500 since the start of the 2003 baseball season with our over/unders. This record for Strategic Sports Publishing is documented by The Sports Monitor. We did well overall in January/February/March basketball as well and Strategic Sports Publishing’s All Sports VIP customers, who have access to our selections across the sporting spectrum, have won 12 of the past 15 weeks. We have just discounted our baseball rates and new All Sports VIP customers will receive the rest of April’s baseball for free. The baseball is very user-friendly, released by 10AM Eastern Time every day, so you can spend a couple of minutes taking advantage of the information and then get on with your day. Call us in the office for more information at 1-770-649-1078.

Our All Sports VIP clients will also have access to our analysis of the Kentucky Derby this Saturday. Here’s something to consider this Saturday when considering the relative quality of performances in key Derby preps. Keeneland is a notoriously speed-friendly track so many were extremely impressed by The Cliff’s Edge and his rallying win from more than 10 lengths down to win the Blue Grass Stakes. Before becoming overly impressed about how The Cliff’s Edge overcame a bias, consider the following reporting should be considered. Steve Klein of Daily Racing Form is an astute observer of Kentucky racing reports “four of the eight winners on the main track were closers who were either last or next to last at the first call. Two other winners rallied from off the pace in fourth position in nine-horse fields, and two front-runners prevailed. You don't often find that half of the dirt races on a card are won by horses who were last or next to last at that stage of the race at Keeneland, so if any contender in the Blue Grass had an advantage due to his running style, it was The Cliff's Edge.”

This is not to say that The Cliff’s Edge won’t be worth betting. But his Blue Grass effort was not the remarkable bias-beating peformance that many casual observers first considered it to be. That’s worth noting, as will a zillion other factors in this wide-open, full-field Derby. Elsewhere in horse racing, the bridgejumpers were out in force for Saturday’s feature at Hollywood Park, betting over a million bucks in the show pool in an effort to earn 5% on their money. $972,590 of $1,002,920 bet on the Bob Baffert two-horse entry in Saturday’s feature at Hollywood. Either of Baffert’s charges deserved heavy favoritism on their own, and the powerful tandem ran 1-2 to reward their backers, returning $2.10 for every $2 wagered. While the five cent on the dollar crowd were rewarded this go around, this spring and summer will likely create some value for those betting against the bridgejumpers when they run out of the money. The odd winning horse with a payoff of $12.40 to win, $9.80 to place, and $78.60 to show will be the result of the failures of “sure things”. And yes, it happens a few times every year.

We had our second consecutive 60% season in the NBA (Sports Monitor documented). We stop playing the NBA shortly after the Final Four and haven’t played the NBA playoffs for a few years. We’re happy about that, as the highly sensible Zig-Zag method of play appears to be continuing it’s decline of recent years. Instead of zigging when they should be zagging and zagging when they should be zigging, ziggers are displaying continued ziginess and zaggers sustain their zaggination. We had planned on commenting on how the Mariners got better after A-Rod left and the Rangers (despite the small sample size) appear to be better now that A-Rod has left. But I’m a Red Sox fan, so that would be a foolish thing for me to do.

Remember to take advantage of our formidable baseball totals (59 games over .500 since the start of the 2003 season, on average fewer than two games per day) by calling us at 1-770-649-1078.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Enjoy the baseball and the Derby. Don’t miss any of these periodic Sports & Gaming News reports. Get on our free email list at http://www.consumerbet.com/signup.html.