A Lesson on How to Blow $500 in One Hour

By Spencer Hall
Caesar’s Sportsbook is the island in Pinocchio where boys turn into donkeys. Four huge screens, two wall-sized boards with scrolling lines, and men who can’t stop themselves betting wildly on games they picked “because the dude in the airport told me it was a can’t miss.”
The fans won’t even interrupt urination for this; in the bathroom, I saw a man at a urinal on a cellphone getting tips for the next game from another man whose name had to be something like Frankie, cigarette in mouth, cellphone on ear, drink in hand. It was a dazzling display of coordination.
I shot my brackets with a gun and still had a better morning than my current neighbors at Caesar’s: Luke and Shane brought the ladies down from Denver, claimed some priority seating on the sly, and camped out around nine in the morning -- a tremendous feat given that the book was already full and asking people to stand in the back.
Luke’s wearing his gold Caesar’s medallion, a gawdy piece of yellow plastic that makes it look like everyone’s dressed up as Russian gangsters for the event. Luke put a hundred on every single underdog this morning for the first round. His bracket below is a picture of wagering devastation: not one has come through yet, and Kentucky is fighting the six point spread to the wire.
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“This should have been the easiest day to do this! It’s the first DAY!” Luke’s relatively genial about losing a hundred dollars a pop on each game, but the Wildcats are going to put him through some chi-chi. The ‘Cats hit a three pointer with under a minute left to bring them into Coverland.
“YES!!!” Luke fist-pumps, and a throng of bettors leap to their feet.
Marquette gets fouled; they hit their free throws. Cheers from all of the people I’ll assume have just become huge Marquette fans ring out as Marquette spreads the points back out into no-man’s land for Luke. Three; two; one. A last second half-court heave that would have paralyzed half the people in the room goes errant, and Marquette covers the six point spread.
There’s much brosephing: high fives, fist pounds, pumping of the fists. Luke sinks back with a rueful grin and takes comfort in a fresh Red Bull and Vodka.
“That’s how you spend $500 bucks in an hour.”
This may be fun. This may be horror unfolding before our eyes. Either way, I can’t look away.
Spencer is covering the manic gamblefest out in Vegas. Follow his work here. ↵