Nobody Does March Madness Like Vegas

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

No city does March Madness like Las Vegas, which has the sports gambling and hospitality infrastructure to show hoops fans a fine time while happily taking their money.

 

From the sports books along the Strip’s hotel-casinos to Westgate’s sports gambling buffet to even cozy sports books in downtown places like El Cortez, Las Vegas generates tens of millions of dollars in legal March Madness gambling and who knows how much on illegal college tourney bets.

 

When I reported the March Madness story for the Las Vegas Review-Journal a few years ago, I enjoyed swinging by Lagasse’s Stadium sports bar at The Palazzo for the tiered-seating and yells of joy and sorrow every time there was a last-minute, game-deciding shot. My favorite March Madness visitor at Lagasse’s was former Indiana Hoosiers basketball player Jen Wilfong, who could out-smart the guys at the sportsbook.

 

The first Thursday of March Madness is an unofficial national holiday and I decided to stroll over from my suburban/Summerlin-near-Red-Rock-Canyon pad to the Red Rock Resort sports book to catch the final minutes of that Loyola-Miami game this afternoon.

 

 

After throwing out a few hoopsy tidbits like “that San Diego State-Houston game is a helluva first round match-up” and “Gonzaga wins 30 games every year and every game they win by two points,” I was accepted into the basketball tribe at the Red Rock book.

 

I was hanging out with four guys — two young bucks, Alton and Todd; a middle-aged fella Mike and an old gray-haired dude with Albert Einstein hair named Guy.

 

When a lanky lefty-shooting player for 11-seeded, two-point underdog Loyola sank a last-second, game-winning three-pointer, the crowd roared with approval.

 

Todd was happy as hell. He bet on Loyola and cleaned up.

 

“The Miami coach is pulling out what hair he has left,” Todd said amid his laughter.

 

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With the basketballs and beers flying, it’s easy to get absorbed into the tribe. I swapped San Diego State stories with Todd after watching the Aztecs beat a tough Nevada squad and win the Mountain West Conference tournament in Las Vegas last week.

 

We chatted about Steph Curry and Davidson, which was playing blueblood Kentucky in the first round today.

 

And then I was off to another to another place.

 

“Have a great tournament fellas,” I told the guys and they said likewise.

 

I walked over to Costco because I thought it would be a hoot to watch four March Madness games at once on the giant screens in the retail member store.

 

But all Costco had to offer was a DIRECTV display.

 

Then, it was a stroll to City National Arena — a hockey place of all places — to meet a friend, Liz, at the Mackenzie River pizza pub.

 

It was in the middle of the afternoon and not too many people watching college hoops in the middle of a hockey training center.

 

There was this fella watching North Carolina State play Seton Hall.

 

It begins with 68 teams and billions of dollars bet off the grid, with a healthy spike in beer and pizza sales.

 

And it repeats Friday with college hoops starting in the morning in Pacific time zone once again.

 

Las Vegas will be a ready host.

 

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