Our friend and colleague, Brian Blessing, caught up with, Las Vegas Legend, Jimmy Vaccaro for an exclusive interview.
Listen to it now direct from your smart phone, computer, or read the transcription below. I think you’ll find the information very insightful and valuable!
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James Jones
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Interview transcription:
Brian: We’re hanging out here at the South Point. The cool thing about being part of this industry is meeting legends, and this is the man. He’s the man, Jimmy Vacarro. How many years you’ve been doing this?
Jimmy: Let’s see, how old are you? 27 or 28?
Brian: I wish. I wish.
Jimmy: I actually moved to town, permanently, in three weeks, it’ll be 40 years.
Brian: My god, when I moved here in 2005 – I covered sports forever – I thought I knew everything. I’ll tell you what. You’re never too old to learn anything. You got to be a sponge when you come to this town. There’s a whole different language, and lingo, and mindset, and getting a read on the public and what numbers it. It is a unique industry.
Jimmy: The people who create the longevity – and obviously I happen to be one of them – it’s like you don’t be stubborn. I’m always listening. I listen to everybody about everything because the industry from when it was when I started to what it is now, if you’d have tried to buck everything because you didn’t like it, then you would’ve been out the door in the late ’70s or early ’80s. I’ve seen it from the day where we had two bets on the Super Bowl – the side and the half-time bet. Now we do 300 bets just on the Super Bowl.
Brian: The fridge?
Jimmy: Ah, the fridge. If I can still see the guy running into the end zone, and everybody paid out–
Brian: Who, who, who–
Jimmy: Who paid the most?
Brian: No, where did that first drop? Who dreamt that up?
Jimmy: Art Manteris – Art Manteris and he talked to me about it before the play-off started. Before the game, I talked– because we just started to use some player props at that particular point in time.
When I was at the original MGM and Art was at Caesar’s Palace, we did good. We only lost about $40,000 on that prop. I think Art took the prize. I think he went for a buck fifty. But these are the type of things that, as we found out, this insatiable appetite that the general public has for betting. If you put it up there and it’s fair, you continue to keep moving along. Then we got in to the corporate stages of it, and it’s the same old thing. Some of the old-timers didn’t like the corporate way and they lost their job. Me, I was smart to understand you have to bridge a gap between, “I’ll show you my old ideas, you show me the new ones, and we’ll work together.”
Brian: Why, though, Jimmy, has it worked for you? Because since the day I met you, your mantra is, “If you’re open, take a bet.” And you’re willing to stick your neck out there. You put a Jags will they win a game prop early on. You’re always out there throwing new and creative things out there and you could take it in the shorts–
Jimmy: I have [laughter].
Brian: — but your bosses buy into your mantra, but that’s not the mindset of a lot of people.
Jimmy: Well, only because sometimes you’re told exactly what to do. I was fortunate when I started remembering. No one in the casino industry had any idea what the races portrait was all about. There was the independent places, but working for Michael Gaughan, he did have a background naturally from his father, but it was easy to work with that. And you know what? He would let me fail to improve myself. In other words, he didn’t say, “Don’t do anything.” Then each time I went to a new casino, they didn’t know anything about it, so they trusted my decision making. They trusted everything that I did for them, that I was going to try to put us in the best position. Didn’t mean you won all the time, but it meant that you went from one place to another, and that obviously, then you build– I won’t use the word “reputation.” It was like, “If the kid’s around, he must know a little about what the hell he’s talking about.”
Brian: And the other thing is very important. In the last 20 years, we use this thing as a– it’s like a big advertisement. I mean, you couldn’t find my name, or anybody’s name in a newspaper 40 years ago. Then when Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder first hit the airway, it opened a little bit of doors where the press started to call us– one quick– Why the Richard Perry thing went nuts is very, very simple? We didn’t get a lot of calls from the outside media looking in when it came to even major things like the Super Bowl, but they had heard after Perry scored the touchdown, the next day the local papers all had it on what happened with the Richard Perry prop. Chicago papers called out here to see what happened. They were absolutely smitten by like, “What a great idea”, and meanwhile and they lost. That word got around on an AP story. The AP story led to another thing. Then what happened after that Brian, instead of us trying to get media when the big events, they started calling us, and then it just started to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
Jimmy: Well, we’re here at the South Point, the rodeo– this place, if you’ve not– when you come to Vegas, you’ll check it out far at the end of the strip. This place is amazing if you’re– it’s own race and sports book for the third group players and a great sports book here. When I moved here, my thing was I’m sitting in a house party in Buffalo watching a football game and the game, read in the racing form Kenny White bought LVSC. And I just got this [Facade?] idea, game 16, and all of a sudden it’s a nine-point game and they get an interception with a minute to go, and the game falls 16. It was a nine-point lead, and everybody in the room in the house party says, “How do they do that?” So I said to myself, “Well, how do they do it? Who are they?” So that was the impetus for me to come out here, and it was the best move I ever made. How proud are you, though? Because, like you say, you do national interviews. You got people calling you left and right now. It is now walls coming down, it’s becoming more mainstream, and you’ve been on the ground floor of this fight for a long time.
Brian: Well, I’ll give you a little idea. We’re talking about Kenny White, who obviously is one of the sharpest kids I ran into. We’re talking about Kenny White. I dealt through his father at the Royal Inn betting sports when Kenny was about this high, so that’s how far back he goes. As far as understanding and talking, well first of all, I like to talk, and second of all, it’s halfway interesting because I tell the absolute truth about what happens in this crazy industry that we call racing sports book. I never pull no punches. The new thing that we’re moving on, that we’re finally going to get an audience again with Nevada Gaming Control. They’re going to let us look into maybe booking in the Olympics, maybe stretching out to the Oscars and stuff like that. These things were unheard of 15 or 20 years ago. So, as the industry has grown, even our regulatory process that we have here, they’re understanding now, let’s take advantage of this great thing we call have a racing sports book. So, they’re reaching out too. Will it happen? I don’t know, but this is as close as we’ve gotten in a long, long time.
Jimmy: Jimmy Vacarro here at the South Point. A true Las Vegas legend when it comes to the bookmaking industry. Knowing your patrons and Michael Gaughan. I mean, for you it goes full circle. Right?
Brian: Yes.
Jimmy: I mean, you guys–
Brian: 40 years.
Jimmy: 40 years back here and to this day, Michael still writes tickets, right, on game day. How about the betting public and how they’ve learn to become more educated, and then how you on the other side of the counter have a feel for what they’re going to do. How has that changed for you?
Brian: Well, situations have really dictated a lot of points for us any more. When I was a kid and you still hear the phrase, “A cold hard number.” Well when I was a kid if a game was three, and the order was sent out to lay the three, well that’s all you did, you laid the three by the people who were fronting the money, or the wise guys behind the initial bet. If it went to three and a half you didn’t touch it. If it went to four you didn’t touch it. You didn’t do anything except the hard cold number that was out there.
Jimmy: But when we found out as we got into – and the general public got involved – well, more situational now. We used the terms, “Must win,” that we never used when I was a kid. So when the team travels east to west, a revenge game. I heard none of those things until about the mid-80s and the start to this got bigger and bigger, and bigger. But from my side of the counter – and I’ve always been the guy, and make no mistake about it. I’ve taken my lumps like every other bookmaker in the history of the world but I always contended, even with the wise guys, my phrase of it was this is my own [chuckles] phrase and I said it 30 years ago. I’d rather– because some people don’t like those people, they’ve been playing in your joints. My thing was I’d rather have those people in front of me knowing what they’re doing as opposed to be behind–
Brian: You can use them by the way, you can utilize them–
Jimmy: Yes. I use them as much as they use me. The general public has gotten bigger, there are surely more of them. But here’s the tipping point, you get the thing all the time, the general public getting smarter. Yeah, they’re getting smarter but the same percentage hold that the state holds for the past 30 years has always been about everything, it’s always the one thing. We’re getting more players getting a little smarter, we’re also just getting more players who are learning. It still comes out to the 6 to 8% every year.
Brian: Say you hang college football numbers on a Tuesday. In this day and age what kind of money does it take to move a number? Obviously it depends if it’s not a key number, or if it’s a dead area, or the opinions and the information that’sout there. If you’re anticipating, or maybe you see a guy that you know on air, maybe you would move some.
Jimmy: Correct.
Brian: Is money still driving this thing?
Jimmy: Yeah. It drives it, but it doesn’t drive it the way that people, to some degree, think it drives it. First of all, you have to get used to the snowballs. Snowballs in my racket means that they might run up a number at low limits Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, wait until Saturday and bet ten times the amount against that move because that’s the number that they wanted. You have to at least have an idea of what these snowball things are. The other thing is – you’re exactly right – a kid may bet me $3000, I may move it a point, or a point-and-a-half. A casino customer might bet $30,000, and I might not move it at all. There’s a general feel that you have to have that goes along with this. You move when you think you’re supposed to move.
Brian: Here’s something to just think about, what I think good bookmakers are made of. What do you do with the second number after, they bet you the first one. If they lay the four then, “Okay, you want the four and a half,” and they lay the four and a half. You just go to five. You make them pay the penalty for going to five and a half. That’s the key, I think, to the guys who truly understand. What do you do with the second hit? Because you don’t want to run way out there with small money. They get the big money coming back. It busts at six, which they might have been looking for from the beginning. It’s an art and science. There’s a little old-time memory says, “Be careful. Don’t be stubborn, but don’t just jump around like you know what you’re doing without any idea of what the hell’s going to happen when they kick off.”
Jimmy: We’re bozos, because we miss the windfall with this fantasy home-run. Basically, it all emanated from Refrigerator Perry. But the kind of money that’s being generated out and now the sports league’s realized they’re up against it. When it finally gets to a court, it’s going to go south, because they’re endorsing the fantasy sports. In essence, it’s nothing different than what we’re doing here.
Brian: Exactly right.
Jimmy: What’s next? What’s the next big thing in this game?
Brian: Fantasy will be the next big thing. It’s just how to figure it out. To go through the regulations with the regulatory process here. Basically right now, the way that we want to do it, or the way that you see it done on television, or all the ads with the people obviously who started this phenomena, it’s like it’s still illegal the state of Nevada to do it the way that they do it. Now like I said, just talking about maybe booking Olympics, all these new things will be brought up and we’re getting newer people everywhere that we do. The younger people saying, “We want this.” And it’s a demand.
Jimmy: If there wasn’t play on the pai gow tables I would usually throw them out. But if they were clamoring for the pai gow tables they’d make room. They’d move out anything that they could to put more pai gow tables in there. We are getting to the point where we’re getting overflowed business on Saturdays and Sundays, just like every other book in the city in the state. We have to keep being progressive. We never booked a soccer game when I first came here. We never booked a NASCAR race till I came here. Now there’s like if you don’t–
Brian: And the sharps are lined up with a NASCAR race, ready to take down a match up.
Jimmy: –not have it up. That’s what I mean. Then they’ll say, “I’m going to go across the street.”
Brian: Well if you don’t, someone else will and they’re not in your joint. I loved it, this is awesome and maybe we’ll absolutely do this again. Let me just ask, because we talk sports for a living. There’s work, there’s stress. We go through all the same nonsense that everybody goes through but we’re not with a jackhammer out there digging ditches. What’s the most fun part of this for you? I mean, we have fun doing this.
Jimmy: For me, it’s leading up to the games. Once it starts I can’t do much with it. I like the buzz before the game. I like the anticipation of what the hell they’re going to do. I like to try to think ahead, but I love it when I see money coming across the counter, you know King all this bets, you look and say, “Where the hell else would I want to be?”
Brian: Well he’s in the South Point now, back with Michael Gaughan and always thinking outside the box. What are some of the– I know you had a horse racing contest in the summer–
Jimmy: Very well.
Brian: You do football contests as well. You got any crazy ideas coming up?
Jimmy: We have a jackpot parlay card for the ball game that we’ll announce probably next Wednesday. We had one last year, we gave away $50,000, stick around kid, you might see a lot more money coming your way.
Brian: A true Las Vegas legend, Mr. Jimmy Vacarro.
