Casinos.co.uk: Casino News Archive
Tuesday 24th August 2004
As I See It, by Jimmy
by Jimmy Vaccaro
August 19, 2004
Took a drive last week with two old friends to Laughlin, Nevada. We packed into Chris Andrews' 'caddy'. Me in the back and Nicky Bogdanovich riding shotgun. Nicky always likes to take the worst of it no matter what he is doing. If anyone has ever made that trip you know it is suicidal to say the least. Two lanes that break into three every now and then and every time you pass a car you feel like you’re laying -10 on a game that is painted pick everywhere. The only gas you can get is in a town called Searchlight, where you’ll find the beautiful Searchlight Nugget and a Terrible Herbst casino and gas pump. And the busiest guy in town is the tow truck outfit. This guy could charge you $8,000 to come and help if you got stuck in the desert and you would gladly pay and give him any live tickets you had in your pocket.
It was the first time I have had a long conversation with both Nick and Chris together since they took over the Golden Nugget, both in Las Vegas and in Laughlin. I have been friends with Chris for over 25 years and he worked briefly with me at the Barbary Coast until he took over the Cal-Neva where he surely made his mark in bookmaking. And Nicky needs no intro as he simply has been Nicky.
History always bears out the names in Nevada bookmaking history and they deserve mention. Bob Martin, Frank Rosenthal, Harry Gordon, and Johnny Quinn to name a few. Some get more recognition than others but the people who understand the racket know who still does and did the best for the joint that he ran and the customers he served. Chris and Nick are definitely in that group.
A few names that you do not hear about that often are two that I am currently working with at Leroy's. They are Bobby Davis and Don De Bacco. Bobby Davis goes back a quarter century to running Sammy Cohen’s joint the Rose Bowl where now Steve Wynn is building a waterfall that will grace the entrance to his new casino. His tag team partner is Don De Bacco who worked with Bobby there and both did a gig at the Tropicana some years later and now runs the bookmaking operation for Leroy's. Bobby actually was my first choice to run the sports book at the MGM when I opened that joint up for Kirk Kerkorian in 1985. They may not write books about these guys but they each deserve their own chapter.
Back to the 'survival' drive to Laughlin. Subjects covered were many, and pointed mostly towards the first nine months of taking over a downtown property and giving it a Strip attitude. High limits are easy to post but dealing them from both a logical and strategical position takes a thought process you can only understand if you are firmly situated behind the counter. If you write 1,000 tickets for the day and the bulk of them are in the normal range and you put one guy on for $40,000 on the afternoon Cubs game, the math is simple. Winning or losing that bet will make your day.
Nothing wrong with that but the swings for auditors to understand sometimes get a little fuzzy. They would like to have a smoother sailing ship that shows the 4% win at the end of the year but would like to get there 1 tick at a time. I have been down that road and it takes time to nurture. But Chris, Nicky, and most important co-owner Timmy, understands it to well. They know by default that they will get some players from the bigger properties who don't want to take a 40 ball on the afternoon game but the trick is to get them to stay. Once they start staying the one bet might turn into five bets, and that is where the earn starts to take hold.
But they know they have to take some moves which will take a few seasons to accomplish what they have set out to do. One move is the $5,000 buy-in for the G.N. football contest. Once again results on whether it is a good or bad move can't be determined to at least the third year. I know from the contest in the past that maturation takes much more than the initial season or two. This is the 27th year for the Pick the Pros at the Coast properties, and I remember the first one which was at the Royal Inn Casino vividly.
We were doing good business and also bringing the parlay cards out of the dark ages. What could put you on the map which was unique even at the time when we were fighting the big boys which was the Stardust and the Plaza at the time. We had no way to fight them as they were well run operations and took much higher limits than us. So you put something together that you hope that works and run with it. With Michael Gaughan spearheading the idea and me on the casino floor with two writers and four machines we started to take applications. We charged $100 per entry and got over 6,000 people the first year. I thought we would not do that many but Michael thought we would do a little more as his feel for the local market at the time was unquestionable. The second year we doubled and within five years and now being at the Barbary Coast we were hitting the 20,000 with no problem.
Then everyone else jumped in and I believe there is something like 175,000 people who play these contest which are unique to Nevada. It was new and obviously different but it worked. But it worked because it was the right idea at the right time for the right casino. Don't know if it would have worked at the beginning at either the Stardust or the Plaza because there was a different feel to those individual places as opposed to the small local driven sports book. With the competitive nature of any business now it is easy to steal anyone's idea but the fit has to be there or you just wind up blowing time, energy, and brain power because you might get stubborn and just try and force it down everyone’s throat.
Even though books are more hectic today than ever because everyone wants to get over on everybody else, even though they won't admit it, patience is still a good virtue to live by. Sports betting in my estimation is headed for a whole new breakthrough as far as interest especially in the young and good ideas still work. Leroy's has a $5,000 weekly giveaway and last year for the first week of entries did just over 3,000 participants. This year we did 4,300 people. But it works for the niche market that we are targeting. All the Las Vegas contests will do well because the inertia has been set but every now and then you need new people coming to the table and pushing it a little more. People will talk about the contest. It will show on a lot of the internet sites and people will wander into the nugget just to see what is going on with the leaders just as they will for the Hilton contest. Putting sports betting out front no matter who does it so long as it is done correctly is good for everyone who is involved in it. Contests are a good byproduct and Chris and Nick will share some growing pains and will probably adjust if they see fit in year two or ten if necessary.
The book at the Laughlin Nugget looked as good now as it was when we opened some 12 years ago. There was even a clerk still there who was left over from the original opening day. Hope Chris does not change it too much. So the trip was fun even though we narrowly dodged a few semis on the way. So thanks for your time and hopefully I can do more articles in the upcoming season.
Take care, Jimmy V.
Contact me at vaccarosports@cox.net.
Source:OnlineCasinoNews
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