Sheets to the wind: A Vegas tradition going by the wayside

Rob Miech/Sun-Times

LAS VEGAS — Sportsbooks have started not giving a sheet.

The sheets that are the backbone of the business, which show daily game and future odds, are disappearing.

At least, that’s one Vegas chain that espouses catering to locals. Late last summer, Station Casinos caused somewhat of a furor by eliminating sheets at its 15 outlets that mostly ring the valley.

Game-day Major League Baseball odds and Super Bowl futures were available upon request, on narrow receipt-like paper strips.

At Green Valley Ranch, an island between its book and a deli was once filled with sheets, for that week’s soccer matches in Europe, the U.S. and Mexico, with title odds, including upcoming international tournaments.

In addition, tennis matches and auto races, from around the world, were in there, as was Australian Rules football, with games and future odds, and other fodder. Today, the many wooden slots on that island remain empty.

Less than two weeks later, GVR returned to offering some sheets, but only on games from the major U.S. sports.

“I think with change, with anything, you’ll always have that,” Stations Casinos race and sportsbook director Chuck Esposito says of initial backlash.

The aim, he adds, has been to drive bettors to kiosks and the company app, on their phones, and the Chicago native says Station patrons have become more receptive to the strategy.

“Those properties are morons,” Circa Sports director of operations Jeff Benson says of such tactics. “We will continue to provide sheets. People like to look at them. It’s simple, and easier for writers.”

NO BETTER FEELING

I define old school. I make every bet in person. I want that ticket, something physical, to store in a Cuban cigar box. My routine also serves as a governor, to make wagering a chore.

Sheets typically show opening odds. The big board displays current numbers, signaling the flow of money. And they’re vital to my job; I keep files for quick and easy reference.

I severely limit inputting personal data into the mobile phone, on any app. In a casino aisle, I’m not the one standing with my schnoz buried in a small screen, triggering a pedestrian pile-up.

“I’m old school as well,” says Southern California handicapper Tommy Lorenzo, “and there’s no better feeling than strolling into the book in mid-August and seeing this beautiful sight.”

He had sent me a photo of the many wooden slots, filled with NFL sheets, Aussie rules and the city’s most extravagant global soccer menu (including Wrexham in England’s League Two), on the right side of the Westgate SuperBook set-up.

To the left is a bookend piece of furniture crammed with odds on the fights, golf, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis and racecars. Multiple book directors say they have recycling programs.

Lorenzo has been visiting Las Vegas frequently for decades, and he recently stayed at Red Rock, the Stations flagship property and sportsbook headquarters.

“And I actually took the 10-minute drive to Rampart, partly because of the sheet situation,” he says of the casino in nearby Summerlin. “It’s a ploy to steer people to the app. At minimum, have a few clipboards on a counter.”

Clipboards with sheets, not narrow receipt-style strips but the usual 8½-by-11-inch stock paper, for people to peruse.

“Catering to all is good customer service, in my opinion,” Lorenzo says. “It’s a yearly tradition for me, to stroll into the SuperBook for its SuperContest weekend in August, and look over all the football sheets.

“Gets me excited for football. I have the [SuperBook] app and use it, but it’s a different experience.”

DEMOGRAPHICS

In New York, handicapper Tom Barton says throughout the Empire State and Jersey, and Atlantic City, books that offer daily game sheets are in the extreme minority. Online titans FanDuel and DraftKings rule that region.

“At the old Wild West, they have future pages but that’s all,” he says. “It’s connected to Bally’s but owned by another book. Strange set-up.”

Barton adds that a DraftKings employee once told him there would be “confusion” if someone tried betting lines on a sheet that had already moved on the big board, which he questioned.

“I love my actual tickets,” Barton says. “I like something tangible to hold; apps are almost like chips, where it doesn’t feel like real money, it’s all electronic.”

Jay Kornegay, the SuperBook’s executive vice president, says he understands “the angle Stations is taking; it makes sense, but we aren’t at that point yet.”

He notes customers in their 20s and 30s who enjoy gambling solely with their phones, which alters dramatically with those in their 40s and 50s.

“That demographic still prefers the sheets and the pencils, even though they’re outdated,” Kornegay says. “They still like those sheets. The Packers are no longer 3, they’re 3.5? The Bears aren’t 6, they’re 7? They update them.

“But I can see, eventually, all sportsbooks eliminating those sheets.”

He mentions the QR coding of menus implemented at restaurants. South Point sportsbook director Chris Andrews has explored similar possibilities for that property’s sheets, which have been employed by Stations.

South Point bookmaker and sports marketing director Jimmy Vaccaro believes the property will provide its usual vast array of sheets as long as hotel owner Michael Gaughan, 81, is around.

BetMGM director trading Lamarr Mitchell, who oversees outlets in eight Strip properties, chatted with Stations brass last summer. BetMGM provides daily game and future sheets, while ticket writers produce the more exotic stuff upon request.

“They did say something about trying to go away from sheets,” Mitchell says. “Funny how sports bettors always want their sheets, but we do make sure they’re available for that day’s events.”

A DISSERVICE

Veteran ’capper Bill “KrackMan” Krackomberger and I might share similar DNA.

“Call me old-school, but I like a sheet,” he says. “First off, I want to know where the lines opened. I also think it’s a disservice to the public by not having them. The older crowd doesn’t want to download an app.

“The problem is lots of times you have people making decisions at the top who don’t gamble. They don’t realize that having a sheet in front of customers may just result in more action.”

Bettors like to write, Krack says, and add, divide or subtract statistics with a pencil and paper, “which could induce more parlay betting, too, and is better for the book.”

In a book while taking notes on the back of that day’s spring-training baseball sheet, I interviewed a source who claimed the ultimate Stations end-game is to eliminate ticket writers.

Esposito, however, says firmly he has never heard that line among company executives.

“Our menus have expanded so much, it’s impossible to put sheets out on everything,” he says. “Guests are getting way more accustomed to the app and kiosks, with current odds at their fingertips.”

As more books offer fewer sheets, though, a slippery slope steepens. Expert oddsman Dave Sharapan frames the future of sportsbooks.

“Soulless, human-less places that nobody goes to unless they HAVE to,” he writes in a text message, “whereas in the past you WANTED to go, even couldn’t wait to go. That’s where the characters are, every day.

“Looking at the sheets.”