by Tim Dahlbeg, SI
LAS VEGAS (AP) Jimmy Vaccaro never had to go far to find some action in the Pennsylvania town where he grew up. Even as a teenager he knew the bookie in the backroom of the local candy store, where the cigar smoke was thick and bets could be made on any game in the country.
Vaccaro’s fascination with betting would lead him to this gambling town, where he quickly found work in legal shops that didn’t have anything to hide from the authorities. He’s run some of the Strip’s biggest sports books, and taken the kind of bets that can make even a legitimate bookmaker lay awake at night.
Now he’s rooting for New Jersey to beat the odds by legalizing sports betting and doing away with the illegal neighborhood bookie once and for all.
”Everything we do is transparent, the rules and regulations are on the wall,” said Vaccaro, oddsmaker at the South Point hotel-casino in Las Vegas. ”The customer is well protected. That doesn’t mean he wins every decision, but he has a place to go if there are any disputes.”
A federal judge will hear the arguments next week on New Jersey’s latest effort to open betting windows for sports fans. It’s the same judge who last year ruled in favor of the four major sports leagues and the NCAA and issued an injunction preventing New Jersey from offering sports bets.
This after New Jersey voters spoke loudly by approving sports betting in 2011, and the state followed by enacting legislation to offer it at race tracks and Atlantic City’s casinos.
The leagues have again trotted out the same absurd arguments about being harmed by fans being able to wager a few bucks on their games. But those fears of shadowy bookies fixing games are long outdated, and that legal sports betting is no more of a threat to major sports than playing the stock market is to major corporations.
”It’s a different world, everything is different,” Vaccaro said. ”They’re not even in the 21st century with the way they think.”
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