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The Limitations of Exotic and Prop Bets in Nevada
Josh Nagel, Covers.com
There’s a time-honored axiom in the gambling business that sportsbooks try to follow at all times: You have to give action to get action.
That’s what Dan Shapiro, marketing director and oddsmaker for Lucky’s Race & Sports Book, had in mind when he was asked to book a futures horse racing bet from a customer who is hardly a novice in the industry. The would-be gambler was 83-year-old Cot Campbell, the iconic president of Dogwood Stable in Aiken, S.C.
Campbell was looking to wager that one of his 42 Dogwood Stable horses would win a Breeders’ Cup race in November. Shapiro and the horse handicapping staff at Lucky’s sized up Campbell’s stable and offered odds of 10-to-1.
One of Campbell’s associates ventured to the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno and took the bet for $5,000. Both sides had the action they wanted.
“We’re in the customer service business,” Shapiro told Covers.com. “We’re always listening to their ideas and needs, and we’ll do our best to accommodate them. We like to take bets, not turn people away. You could say there’s a bit of old-school theory in play there.”
Confident that 10-to-1 was the correct price, Shapiro and his colleagues did a bit of a double-take when they saw one of Campbell’s horses win a race at Churchill Downs, not long after the ink dried on the ticket they gave him.
“So it looks like he might have gotten the best of it at 10-to-1,” Shapiro said. “We’ll find out in a few months.”
Campbell’s wager with Lucky’s provides a snapshot of an under-publicized facet of the Nevada sportsbook industry: If you don’t see what you are looking for, don’t be afraid to ask.
There are no guarantees that a betting parlor will meet your request, but books are more open to the idea than you might imagine. It’s part of an ongoing, industry-wide effort to maximize wagering options that coincides with myriad technological advances such as smart phone applications and self-serve betting kiosks.
“I believe the sportsbook industry in Nevada has been underdeveloped in this regard,” Shapiro said. “If you go into a bookstore and they don’t have what you are looking for, they will order it for you. Why can’t we do that here, so long as it’s a reasonable request?”
The definition of “reasonable” depends, to some degree, on who is doing the asking and the nature of the bet. For instance, exotic prop bets are a popular request and, even though Nevada recently eased legislation to allow such bets, they are difficult to get approved by the Gaming Control Board. Thus far, the governing body has rejected proposals for reality shows such as “American Idol” and “Survivor.”
Your chances become better if you inquire about a sporting event that falls under standard wagering guidelines. For instance, if you ask for odds on an undercard bout of a boxing event or on an obscure mixed-martial arts card, there’s a decent chance you’ll at least get the wager considered.
But your perceived level of skill -- whether you’re a casual or a professional bettor -- is taken into consideration, and you’ll be looking at low betting limits if it gets posted.
“If a tourist player from Duluth, Minn., came in and wanted to bet on the Duluth football program, we’d probably put up something like that,” Jeff Stoneback, sportsbook manager at the MGM, told Covers.com. “We’d still have a very small limit on the game because the tourist bettor will still know more about the Duluth program than we would. If it’s a pro bettor who asks, we wouldn’t cater to them.”
Even with low limits, oddsmakers such as Stoneback are keenly aware that any mistake in the linemaking leaves his bottom line vulnerable to the wiseguys.
“If you haven’t booked it before, you’re not going to get a big handle (two-way action) on it,” he said. “You have to be careful because if you’re out of line, you’re not really going to get anything back from the public.”
Even so, sportsbook operators are generally open-minded to taking proposals for customized bets, provided there is a reasonable amount of potential action and ways to limit their liability.
For instance, Stoneback said the NCAA lacrosse championships have been a popular request in recent years. He also gets a fair share of inquiries for Canadian junior hockey; those bettors get turned down because the sport falls under the umbrella of amateur athletics for which wagering is prohibited.
“For lacrosse we get 20 to 30 requests per day, and we’ve got 12 properties. We can put a line out there and get some action,” Stoneback said. “What’s funny is, a lot of people come in and think you can bet on anything in Vegas. They will come in and ask for such-and-such a bet. But it’s not worth it to put something up for one person for a $10 bet.”
However, annual Las Vegas favorites such as the professional bullriding and motocross tours that come to town are regularly posted in the MGM’s books.
Oddsmakers such as Stoneback and Shapiro might see an influx of special requests come this fall as the NFL and NBA might both be stuck in the throes of prolonged lockouts. They are ready for the questions, but offer no guarantees.
“It kind of works two ways,” Stoneback said. “We try to please customers as much as we can, but we can’t post anything that’s ridiculous.”
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