For Better or Worse

On any night in Las Vegas, the best show in town is free.

Visit one of the casino sports books around 10 p.m., just as that day’s sports events are ending, their final moments being shown on dozens of TV sets.

Gathered around the screens will be an assortment of sad-looking men cheering for the teams listed on their betting slips.

Only, it’s not cheering. It’s pleading. It’s desperate wailing for the one touchdown, the one basket, the one goal that will allow them to leave the building with their money.

“C’mon, you stupid little. . . . What’s wrong with you! You are the worst, the worst! One more score! C’mon, just one more . . . score!”

Some win. Most don’t. Most curse, scream, tear their tickets and throw them into the air.

On any night in Las Vegas, one of the most powerful lures is sports gambling.

Today, we write about the pushers.

They call themselves “handicappers,” but they are con men.

Their services are legal, but they push their customers to break the law.

This is not about telling people how to bet in Las Vegas, or other places in Nevada, the only state in the country where sports gambling is legal.

This is about telling people how to bet with that bookie around the corner. This is about an arrogant voice urging you to send money if you want to get rich, a modern-day snake oil peddler making promises he can’t keep.

Certainly, it is your choice.

You do not have to telephone the phony who claims to have picked every NFL winner in the last 10 years.

You do not have to be so stupid as to wire money to someone who will make betting selections you could make just as well yourself.

And nobody is making the average person pick up the phone and pull out the credit card.

But these services do not target the average person. They target the guy who has a gambling problem, which can be no less devastating than those involving alcohol or drugs.

These services exploit addiction and profit from weakness.

This is like somebody advertising quick and easy diet tips that, on closer inspection, make you fatter.

When you call them back, they try to sell you different diet tips for the extra weight.

I’m not real savvy on the intricacies of the gambling racket. I’ve never met a bookie, and I’ll bet one night’s worth of games during my annual vacation trip to Las Vegas.

But there is one thing I can’t believe sports bettors don’t realize:

If these handicappers could really pick the winners, why would they be selling them to strangers over the phone?

The concept is so absurd, it’s worth repeating.

If these handicappers could really pick the winners, why would they be selling them to strangers over the phone?

Wouldn’t they keep their information to themselves and make big money betting on those sure winners? Why would they bother with advertising and phone lines and boiler-room henchmen?

To further sucker the suckers, the handicappers say they have inside information. This is a crock, and they know it’s a crock, so they hire men like John Brodie and Deacon Jones to front for them.

Brodie and Jones and the other big names involved in this business are hardly blameless. They know they were not hired for their big smiles and the statistics they posted as players.

They were hired because handicappers want to imply that these former stars have access to inside information. Maybe they realize this now and that’s why they are suing, but why are the ads still appearing?

The handicappers even imply that these stars have knowledge of games that are “fixed,” the outcome somehow predetermined.

In reality, it is virtually impossible to fix football games, which account for most of the sports betting business. There are too many players who touch the ball, and that ball takes too many funny bounces.

Casino experts believe the only sport that can be easily fixed is college basketball, because a couple of players from each team control the ball, and those players often need the money.

But even then, the sports books often figure out the “funny” games and take them off the board, which is what happened to the allegedly fixed Arizona State games in the 1993-94 season.

Several years ago, I was researching a story about the average Sunday in the life of an addicted gambler. I was sitting with him in his living room during a football pregame show.

Spread out before him were the names of men he would soon be calling--King Frank and Football Joe--to give him that day’s NFL winners.

In another pile were the names of the bookies he would call to place the bets.

The handicappers would cost him money, the bets would cost him more money, and if this was anything like last week, he would soon be losing it all.

Then the doorbell rang. It was the gambler’s wife, who had often complained about his betting. She and their young daughter had moved out the night before but were back for their things.

Those handicappers who had helped this guy go broke? I bet every one of them could have predicted that.