Las Vegas Report and NFL Week 16

 

I went on a quick hit trip to Vegas last weekend to get out of the cold and enjoy a Sunday of NFL gambling with Krusty.  I stayed at the MGM Grand, not because I particularly like the MGM Grand, but because the room rate was really cheap.  I don’t know when the last time was that you went to Las Vegas, but at this point all the Strip properties are owned by three companies.  It sort of doesn’t matter where you stay unless you are concerned about restaurant choices or location of the property.  As far as I can tell the only difference between the MGM Grand, New York New York and the Excaliber are only if you care about if the place has a paper mache castle or has a giant gold lion statue.  They are all pretty much just big metal sheds that are made to keep you contained while they drain your bank account at every turn.  It’s not very different than just staying at the airport and eating all your meals there.  I spent $17 on a bottle of Desani water and a magazine to read on the Frontier direct flight home.  A bottle of Heineken was $10.84 which I rounded out to $12.00 to give the bartender a tip.  I ate a $34 chicken cutlet that came with a cucumber salad the size of my palm, although that might have been a negligibly better deal than the $28 bowl of noodles I ate for lunch when I arrived.  

Those nostalgic stories you hear about “The Old Vegas” are right on the nose.  I remember going out there and eating cheap as the hotels would make the basic meals a loss leader, kill you on the high end dining, and make sure you were good n’ drunk with free flowing booze to keep your decision making skills dulled.  It used to be only Caesar’s that employed the practice so accurately described by an old college roommate as “pounding it up your ass with a stick”.  Now gambling anywhere on The Strip is an exercise in stupidity as the games are all tweaked to make winning impossible.  The only potential way to make any money in Strip Casinos is in the sports book or I suppose the poker room if you know what you are doing and get lucky enough to find a table full of people that don’t know what they are doing.  It makes me bitter.  Thus, I have really enjoyed taking money from “The Lion” (as we call the MGM) at every opportunity when I’m there.  I don’t play even a quarter slot machine in those places, walk great distances to avoid eating meals there whenever possible, and leap at the opportunity to make good sports bets at favorable lines.  The most bleak scenario is to have to hand over your money to a place that is pounding it up your ass with a stick with $12 beers and $34 chicken cutlets.  The last thing you want to have happen is to “feed the lion” by losing money in rigged up table games or playing juiced up vigs.  The rooms are fine, but I don’t even buy a coffee in there now.  I’m out of the MGM Grand business.  

It was an odd vibe in the hotel because it was filled with honest to God cowboys in town for the annual rodeo.  The music on the overhead speakers had been changed to fit the clientele with absolutely identical country songs with laughably predictable choruses played.  I could not identify one artist but it didn’t matter because they all sounded the same.  It was shit like this every time I made the two mile walk from my room to get out the door.  “I got an ice cold beer and a shot of crown, ain’t gonna let nothing get me down, my honeysuckle rose got her bluejeans on, and that country music is playing all night long”.  The songs have the EXACT same arrangements.  I don’t know why people like it.  It’s fucking brutal.

One thing I have to say though, every one of those cowboy hat square toe boot boys was polite, courteous, and well behaved.  Everyone looked sort of the same, guys with thick necks and trimmed beards under enormous cowboy hats.  The women all looked like Erica Kirk.  Nobody was visibly drunk, yelling across public spaces, or using their speaker phone.  Yes sir, no ma’am.  That rodeo crowd is fine by me.  As someone said, “They’re all really nice as long as you don’t let your conversation drift into politics.”  It was odd seeing so many cowboys walking around, like if an Amish community took over the hotel and you were the only one not in town to put a barn up.  In an America that is very homogenous, these people live on a different planet than I do.  There must be a much larger sense of certainty in your ideas when everyone looks the same as you do, likes all the same things, and has the same shared values (and I say that from my suburban bubble neighborhood with an army of blonde Moms in Lululemon workout pants driving their kid to soccer practice in their enormous SUVs, none of whom I can differentiate from the other much less match a name/face).  We all have our tribes I suppose.  

I spent a good majority of time down at Circa for a couple beneficial point spreads and their great sportsbook set up.  From there we would venture out to some truly dodgy casinos like the one in The Grand or over at The Californian with its thermostat set at 76 degrees to keep their Hawaiian clientele comfortable in the “cold” of December Las Vegas.  We were friggen whales in those rooms.  Quick word of advice, those downtown casinos have two sections in them which are “Smoking” and “Heavy Smoking”.  I will probably be fighting lung cancer next week after sitting next to a woman that aggressively smoked cigarette after cigarette down to the filter, but the beers were only $4 in the sad little sportsbook so there was a reasonable trade off to watch the Cowboys lose in prime time.  I just like it better when the joint is with a 52/48 house advantage not a 65/35 Fuck You Stupid set up. 

I was stuck in EST sleep patterns, so I would wake up at 430am and wait around until a good coffee place was open in a location that would force me to make a long walk.  Early morning walking The Strip is a great place to see some lost souls, mentally ill, and the occasional Mexican drinking something blue from an enormous plastic globe talking shit to his buddies.  These are where one can pick up the best sports gambling tips as one can be certain that whatever these guys think is about to happen in not only the NFL but the world in general is completely wrong.  This is my “fade the public” strategy that has proven to be very profitable long term.  It’s not 100% certainty as the old adage of “even some of the people some of the time” is correct, but for the most part a guy drinking a 120 oz alcoholic blue drink from a globe is a guy that has made and will continue to make bad choices.  Fade that guy.  

I had an absolutely monster weekend of winners out there, so let's see if we can keep that rolling this weekend.  After my historic "Sunday Turnaround" I am back to being profitable for the year so I'm feeling it.  Let's see if the mojo continues with getting on the UNDER in the Saints v Jets game, an NFL contest which might set the record for the least amount of interest.  Look, the Jets are starting an Area Youth at QB and that hasn't been going very well.  That young man tossed three INTs last week, scaored only 10 versus the shitty Miami D, and is the 46th ranked QB this year.  He is firmly into the "Did you hear that Brady from sales used to play in the NFL?  Yeah, he started three games!" camp.  The Saints meanwhile have been playing hard, which is a key for defensive results.  They are playing a dink n dunk offense which has failed to produce a pass of over 20 yards for five weeks, which seems impossible.  Unless the area youth tosses some brutal pick sixes, I like New Orleans/Jets UNDER 40.5.

I watched Phillip Rivers play last week, and I have no idea why Seattle chose not to blitz the immobile overweight middle aged man.  I do believe that Robert Salah, a horrible head coach but very good defensive coordinator, will watch the same game that I did and reach the same conclusions that I did.  Rivers, and let's hand it to him, did everything he needed to do to provide the Colts with a chance to win last week.  Good for him.  Now let's see how his 44 year old body does a week after playing his first NFL game in four years trying to replicate that feat.  Based on what I could see, Rivers is very limited physically with what he can do, and the 49ers saw the same shit I did.  San Francisco -5.

I think all those teams in the NFC South sorta suck.  Carolina is Atlanta is Tampa.  I won a nice sum of loot betting against Carolina last week because they "had to have the win" versus New Orleans.  These teams all sorta blow.  Tampa goes to Carolina this weekend basically for the right to get smoked in the playoffs.  I would normally bet on Mayfield here, but he's doing his 'wounded warrior" thing, and if he's limited physically he's got a real problem.  It's not like I love Carolina, but a divisional game with the home team getting points?  Carolina +3.

I am on Jacksonville +3.5 over Denver.  It is very difficult to take money and say "I'd like to invest in Trevor Lawrence in this important football game" but here we are.  There is some stat about teams that have won 11 games in a row only cover 33% over their next start that dates back to 1990, and Denver fits that bill.  Do I think Jacksonville wins?  No.  But I do think this will be that game where Bo Nix plays sorta shitty and then at the very end leads a good drive down the field and they kick a late FG to win by 2 points.  Cut to a shot of Trevor jogging off the field excited to call his girlfriend and set up their big afternoon at the corn maze on Monday.  Jacksonville +3.5   

I think the Raiders are the worst team in the league now, which is saying something with the Browns and Jets running around out there.  This is the point in the season where some teams have given up, or ownership has made it clear that there will NOT be a Merry Christmas at their coach's homes this year casting a pall on the team.  The Browns, Raiders, Jets, Miami and probably Cardinals are all getting blown up in a few weeks and everyone in those buildings is spending half their day doing their job and the other half making calls to their friends around the league looking for their next landing spot.  Who has no hope, no motivation, is in a bad spot this week, and just wants this to be over?  Cleveland/Raiders/Washington.  How about some nice little moneyline parlays of Philadelphia/Buffalo/Houston and Buffalo/Houston as a little stocking stuffer?  Unless it's really windy I am taking Buffalo -10 (which might tamp down scoring) as the Browns have zero (0) healthy offensive linemen this week.

Current record:  25-28