communication breakdown

Vegas: The Narrative - Day Three

Here is Part 3/4 of my write-up of our trip to Vegas, recreated from a combination of (hazy) memories and notes I took each evening.

Day Three: December 18, 2004

Day Three was all about sports. The long-awaited Tech basketball game was later in the evening, but in the meantime, we figured it was about time to do some sports betting. The day before we scoped out all the sports books and found the one at Mandalay Bay to be the best by far (only MGM's came close). So after a healthy amount of sleeping in we headed over to Mandalay to get an "early" start on the sporting festivities. It was a good day to hang out in the book because there was a little bit of everything going on. There were two football games, several college basketball games, some horse races, and even a little NBA if you're into that sort of thing. The sports book is cool because it just feels like a guy's paradise. When you walk in, you can't take your eyes off the wall of information - one absolutely huge screen in the center, bookended by two semi-huge screens on the sides, each of which was surrounded by eight partially-huge screens. With few exceptions, there was a different sporting event on each one. In between all the screens were huge computerized panels where they list every conceivable game you can bet on, and what all the odds are. The numbers update in real-time whenever the lines change. The seating area is full of large, comfortable leather chairs. So you relax in a big chair, watch all the sports you can handle, while waitresses bring you drinks. It doesn't get much better than that on this Earth. I should mention here that Dave was propositioned by a hooker at some point during the day - unfortunately he rebuffed her advances. That would have made for a great story though...

Anyways, back to the sports book: some of us placed some early bets on the games - most of us had money on Duke beating the spread against Oklahoma. Me and John also had a bet on the Skins-49ers game - he took the Skins, while I played the under. It's amazing what putting $10 on a game will do for the excitement level. We were all into each and every play of those games. Duke scared us for much of the day, not only falling well behind the spread, but actually being beat straight-up by Oklahoma for most of the game. They pulled it off in the last few seconds. It was thrilling to watch, especially with a win in the end. As far as the football game goes, they scored a ton of points early so by halftime I had nearly lost the under bet already. However, there was little scoring in the second-half so I still almost won - I didn't lose the bet until the very last score of the game, with about 4 minutes on the clock. The Skins won and so John went 2-0 on the early games. Everyone was pretty happy going into the evening.

Now, during the early games, we spent a whole lot of time discussing the Tech game and what kind of money we wanted to bet on it. Eventually, after hours of discussion, we decided to place a parlay bet, which is where you bet on multiple outcomes at once - if they all happen you win big, but if you miss any, you lose. We bet on 3 things: that Tech would beat the spread, that the score would be under the O/U, and that Oklahoma State would beat the spread in their game. We were most worried about the OSU game, because they were playing UNLV who was at home. We grouped our money and had several hundred into the parlay by the time we were done. If the parlay paid off, it would be worth several thousand dollars. Since we were most confident about the Tech bets, some of us put side bets on the Tech game, just to cover our losses if the parlay didn't work out.

After placing the bets we headed over to the game. We got there in time to see the second half of the OSU game. It was even more intense than the Duke game, because we were there in person, the crowd was behind the home team, and we were rooting for the visiting bullies because we had so much money invested. It seemed like we were rooting harder than anybody in the stadium, especially the visiting OSU fans. Like Duke, OSU toyed with their opponent and hung right around the spread for the last 10 minutes of the game. They had us on pins and needles. In the very last seconds, they pulled it off. We went absolutely nuts. Step 1 was complete - now Tech just needed to come through, and we were rich (sort of).

Well, if you watch or read ESPN you know what happened. Tech played horribly, Gonzaga played great, which means we got stomped. It was horrible. Plus the game was high-scoring so we missed the O/U, too. Not only did we lose the parlay, but our side bets went down the drain, too. The home crowd decided to root for Gonzaga (neutral home crowds always root for the underdog), so we were in a hostile arena, with the fans sorely outnumbered, and our team playing poorly. Needless to say, we all left pretty depressed. For my part, I don't mind losing the money - like the rest of the week, I only bet what I could afford to lose. But when my teams lose, there is no consolation. It ruins my entire day - the whole week, for that matter. It really put a damper on the trip. Had we won, not only would we be excited, but we would have won that parlay and would have went crazy. Ironically enough, we were worried about OSU coming through, and were very confident in Tech - and we should have been thinking the opposite. I guess that's why one of The Sports Guy's general rules of gambling is to never bet on a team with which you have an emotional attachment.

We left the stadium feeling pretty down, and walked all the way back to the hotel, which was a pretty considerable distance. I guess we were gluttons for punishment. Once we got back to the hotel we just crashed. Some of the guys decided they wanted to go downstairs and walk around the casino (and play some video poker, I'm sure). Daniel couldn't decide if he wanted to go down or not - you could see he was struggling with himself to determine if he should risk gambling any more money that night. As he walked out, he was saying "I'm not going to play Hold'em. I'm not going to play Hold'em... Guys, don't let me play Hold'em." One of the funniest things I heard all week. Three days in Vegas and Sims was turning into a poker addict already. Luckily, his willpower prevailed and he didn't play anymore that night.

Soon enough they came back upstairs and we put an end to a depressing day...