OK, so what happened to prop wagering on the strip? In my last column I detailed the origins and growth of Super Bowl props, this week - the death of the prop on the Vegas strip. To recap - the Imperial Palace led the way with the most props, in quantity and innovation, and others followed their lead. Many books either made their own props, or copied the IP's. But the last couple years saw changes - many books dropped props altogether and the few remaining players cut way back on their offerings.

This can be attributed to two things:

 
1 - The dearth of bookmaking talent. Even though it takes no talent to copy props, you still have to know how to move lines, stay on top of injury updates, weather, etc; if a book was slow, or weak, the wise guys

pounced like leopards on a gimpy gazelle. Lose money once in the Vegas corporate environment of today and there is little chance the bean counters will let you try it a second time.

 
2 - The conglomerization (I made that one up but you know what I mean) of The City. Where you once had individually owned casinos you now have huge corporate conglomerates owning multiple casinos - MGM Mirage, the state's largest casino conglomerate whose holdings include the Bellagio, Mirage and MGM Grand hotels, among others; Stations, which owns off strip properties such as Green Valley, Red Rock, Palace and Texas Stations; Coast Properties, which owns Barbary Coast, Gold Coast and the Orleans; and the worst entity contributing to the vanilla-ization of Vegas - Harrah's Entertainment, which owns Harrah's, Paris, Bally's, The Rio, Caesars and . . . the IP.

 
With a reputation for the tightest limits and least betting options in town the worst thing that could happen to sports bettors is for Harrah's to lead the way in the corporate takeovers. A Harrah's employee once explained their philosophy on sports betting to me –

 
"We view it as a waste of floor space, but a necessary evil because if we don't offer it then our players will go next door to bet on games, and they may stay there for a while, and we don't want to lose ancillary business (craps, 21, roulette, restaurants, etc.)"

 
This theory made little sense to me, as Harrah's now owns most of the "next door" places he was referring to!

 
Consider what a different landscape it would be if the owners of the Hilton were leading the takeovers - it would be a boon for bettors-as sports betting options would increase instead of decrease.

 
But the death of props at the IP actually began before Harrah's took them over, when in a classic example of Vegas-type cronyism, the IP bought in an empty-headed-suit pal of the GM as casino manager. The new sports book director, Rich Dressler (pen name "me") was subjected to such pearls of wisdom as "I want to improve the bottom line in the Race book. I want you to lower all your limits."  This idea was immediately squashed when the finer points of a pari-mutuel environment were explained to the moron (the book collects a percentage for each dollar bet, thus, suggesting lower limits was ignorant at best, asinine at worst.)

 
The super bowl prop tradition at the IP breathed its last breath a short time later when Harrah's bought them, and the casino manager ordered the sports book to discontinue the tradition, despite a substantial profit on props in the previous year. The new directive had the IP sports book offer only what the parent company offers, which was approximately 25 wagering options of the most basic variety.

The suits at Harrah’s finally caught on to the fact that the casino manager was a juiced-in moron and they removed him (but not  before he also closed the sports betting drive-up window, an option the locals loved as it provided them the opportunity to not have to deal with long walks, long lines and tourists inside the book. He said he was thinking of putting an ice cream stand in instead. Without revealing confidential numbers, the drive through was very profitable; after three months of being closed the

casino manager asked why the sportsbook’s numbers were down by X; the reply - "I don't know, but it looks to me like X is the same number as the drive through monthly revenue multiplied by three!" The sarcasm/common sense revelation eluded him.

 
Unable to catch on at a similar position at any other casino, the ex-casino manager was last seen standing in front of The Mirage, handing out business cards showing pictures of half nude girls and their phone

numbers. (OK, I made up that last line; actually, I heard he is in a minor sales position going door to door for a small company. I guess he didn't have any other GM friends in the casinos.)

 
Props can still be found at the IP and other strip casinos, but they are a far cry from what used to be offered. On championship weekend I visited three books that used to have props - and found not a single one, not even the most basic of player or team props.

 
To find variety, you have to find Ed at the Hilton, or have an on line account at one of the few books that makes their own props, or one of the many that copy Ed's.

 
Good luck in the big game, and enjoy some prop bets - if you can find them