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As first reported in the article by Todd Dewey, one Las Vegas casino owner is rolling the dice in a big way on this month’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Everyone knows that March Madness is one of the biggest betting events of year when it comes to real money gambling.
Billions are bet both legally and illegally on this tournament. It all starts with the local bracket pool at work escalating to the huge amount of money that will be bet in Las Vegas casino sportsbooks over the next few weeks. When it comes to Las Vegas casino owner Derek Stevens, he has once again taken things to a whole new level.
According to the report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stevens has placed an $11,000 bet to win $10,000 on each of the first 32 games in this Thursday’s and Friday’s opening round. This is actually the second year in a row that the over of D Las Vegas and Golden Gate pulled off this stunt. The bets were place almost immediately following Sunday’s release of the betting lines for the games during a live show on VSin.com hosted by Brent Musburger. The bets were placed at the best Vegas casinos online. When the smoke cleared, the total amount in play on these games is $363,000. This was $11,000 more than last year’s $352,000 bet on the games. The discretion in the numbers was inadvertently caused by Stevens making an extra $11,000 wager. He must be hoping that Loyola-Chicago can cover as a 2.5-point underdog against Miami, since he ended up betting that game twice. A team of four different D Las Vegas employees aided him in the betting process and that is how the duplicated bet got placed.
Part of the confusion was Stevens betting these games live as they were released. He went on to say in this report, “That was a mistake. We bet Loyola at both places. The pressure is on when you’re in the studio. The cameras are on and the lines are popping. Doing it live is a whole different story than sitting back and placing your bets.” All told, Stevens went with 17 underdogs in the 32 games. His main goal is to beat last year’s performance which cost him $109,000. His final record in last year’s NCAA Tournament’s opening round was 10-19-3.
When asked about last year’s picks, Stevens noted, “Last year was kind of tough. I had to make every bet within 10 seconds of being told the line. To try and do it by yourself is impossible.” Stevens went on to add, “This year, we had some of our team come down and they kind of helped me out. And we used two books to get all 32 bets in at a little better number.” Two of his biggest underdogs in this year’s picks start with Wright State as a 13.5-point underdog against Tennessee. He also went with Stephen F. Austin as 11.5-point underdogs against Texas Tech.
