Commentary : One Sure Thing: Race Books Don’t Take Many Chances

LAS VEGAS â€”  In the popular imagination, this is a city where anybody can bet any amount of money on just about anything. The operators of the race books encourage that notion by moaning periodically about how they have lost huge sums by betting coups, hot horses or future-book wagers.

But people familiar with horse betting in Las Vegas know that these stories are exaggerations or fictions, and that the reputation of the race books as wide-open gambling establishments is a myth.

Here’s the reality:

I was wandering through the race book at the Sands Hotel, where a prominent sign advises customers how liberal the betting rules are: 300 to 1 limits on exactas and quinelas, full-track odds paid on the first $50 of a wager. Terrific! When I saw on television that horses were approaching the gate for a race at Philadelphia Park, I consulted my figures quickly, went to a window and asked for a $30 exacta combining the two favorites.

The ticket seller called for a supervisor, who told me gravely that this was too big a bet.

I pointed to the odds displayed on the television screen. “This is a 7-to-2 shot over a 6-to-5 shot,� I said. If I won, my profit would be $400, tops.

“We’ll let you bet $2 each way,� the supervisor said.

Thanks a lot.

This was an extreme case, but it typifies the prevailing spirit at the Las Vegas race books. Instead of encouraging all the betting action they can get, they are paralyzed by fear of losing.

Horse racing has become a boom industry here, as simulcasting of live races has given casinos a vehicle for continuous action and excitement. At the Caesars Palace race book--the poshest in town--a bettor can sit comfortably behind a desk facing giant screens and watch races from coast to coast all day.

Action starts at 10 a.m. on races from Eastern tracks, including Belmont, Laurel, Monmouth and Philadelphia Park. When those cards are winding down, racing starts in the Pacific time zone at Hollywood Park. And late in the afternoon, it’s time for nighttime action in the East--thoroughbreds from Atlantic City, trotters from the Meadowlands, greyhounds from Flagler in Miami.

If a bettor has any energy left after that, he can wander down the Strip to an establishment that televises the late dog races from Portland, Ore. It’s a gambler’s dream--almost.

Although few people have ever wound up in the poorhouse by booking horse bets, the race books do run a risk of losing on any given race if they are overloaded with wagers on the same horse. This can easily happen, because tips on supposed hot horses--called “steam� in the local parlance--circulate here every day, and everybody wants to jump on the same bandwagon.

“In this town most people don’t know how to read the racing form,� said Al Sinatra, who supervises the Stardust race book. “All they’re looking for is the steam.�

So the operation of every race book is geared to keep from getting overloaded on a single race. “Each track has a risk factor,� he explained. “At Hollywood, for arguments’s sake, we might be willing to risk $50,000 a race. At smaller tracks it would be a lot less.

“Now suppose a guy wants to bet $1,000 across the board on a 5 to 1 shot. Before he hits the door the whole town is going to have this horse. I’m going to have to get the room people (the regular Stardust customers) down. So I might tell the guy, ‘I’ll give you $500 across.’ It’s a judgment call. I’m here to gain customers but you can’t give money away.�

The computers at the race books monitor their action and alert management whenever a bet might look risky. If a bet exceeds a preset limit (say, $50 on an exacta), if the potential losses on a given race approach the limit of the “risk factor,� if a horse has been identified as “steam,� the computer screen will flash the words, “GET APPROVAL.� The seller will yell out “Key!� and a supervisor will have to type in a code to let the wager go through. But while the computers monitor the potential losses on win bets, they don’t keep tabs on exactas.

“The most dangerous thing to fear are the exotics--exactas, quinellas and parlays,� Sinatra said. “We might take up to $100 in an exacta if a guy is also betting a lot in straight bets.�

And the Stardust ranks, in the view of locals, as one of the three most liberal establishments in town, along with Caesars Palace and the Hilton. There’s probably not a place in the city where a bettor could make a $200 bet on an exacta. And Las Vegas’ wariness of exactas is exceeded by its fear of the future books that generate national publicity before the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup each year. A Los Angeles handicapper thought he saw some virtues in Sunday Silence before the colt had ever won a stakes race, and went to the Frontier Hotel’s race book to bet $200 at 60 to 1. He was allowed to bet $100 at the advertised price; then Sunday Silence’s odds were cut in half, and he was permitted to bet the rest at 30 to 1.

What makes this conservatism so absurd is the odds are stacked so heavily in the race books’ favor; even the “steamers� who inspire such fear from the race books are usually losers. The real reason that dictates the race books’ caution is not a realistic fear of losing, but a corporate mentality. When I tried to talk to the race-book manager at one of the big hotels, I had to get approval at various levels of the company’s hierarchy just to ask a few innocuous questions. These are big businesses; the race-book manager has a boss, who has a boss, who has a boss, and all of them are looking at the bottom line of the race book each day. They don’t want to see any minus signs.

When I was denied my $30 exacta bet at the Sands, I complained to the race-book manager, Bob Gregorka, who was candid enough to admit that this was his rationale. “If we were to lose $50,000 or $60,000 a day, I wouldn’t keep my job, and I’ve got two kids to feed,� he said. “When you turn down bets you’re going to run out a certain amount of customers, but in the long run you’re better off doing it.�

He said he had a couple regular customers who bet as much as $10,000 a day, playing virtually every race. Presumably they’re the kind of chronic losers that casinos love, and he doesn’t have to go out of his way to take any additional risks. Generating bigger profits isn’t really a major concern for him, or for his employer.

“The slot machines at the Sands make more in one week than the race books make in a year,� Gregorka said. “We’re like a loss leader. The race books are here because you don’t want your customers to leave the hotel.�

But the restrictions are enough to make would-be serious bettors leave out of exasperation. The race books here are marvelously entertaining, an equine three-ring circus, but a serious horseplayer can find as much serious action on an average afternoon at Laurel as he can in America’s gambling capital.