Don't bet on Vegas seeking bailout on Tampa Bay Rays bets

Some folks are wondering about the financial impact on Las Vegas sports books should the Tampa Bay Rays win the World Series.

Back in the spring, most fans and sports books looked at the newly attired Tampa Bay Rays as a more colorful, but equally inept, version of the perenially bad Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

That new-uniforms-but-same-dismal-team outlook was reflected in the 150-1 to 200-1 odds that most sports books were offering on the Rays winning it all. Vegas books will have to pay out good money to prescient (or should that be lucky) Rays fans, said San Diego State professor Jim Lackritz.

But Lackritz, who specializes in applied statistics, statistical algorithms and statistical process control -- and who, with a laugh describes his gambling knowledge as "academic" in nature -- says you don't have to cry for Las Vegas.

Lackritz, who doubles as associate dean of academic affairs at the university's College of Business Administration, suspects that a good deal more money flowed into sports books on the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Angels and other teams with betting-prone fans whose favorite teams are at home with the rest of us watching the World Series on television.

Casino books in recent months also tried to craft odds that would make betting attractive to Phillies fans -- and at the same time lessen the financial effect on their bottom lines.

"It's not their goal to create fair odds," Lackritz said. Instead, it's all about leveraging the books' considerable understanding how much money is likely to be bet, which teams will get the wagers, and what kinds of odds are most likely to keep the casinos from asking Uncle Sam for a bailout.

And, as for this statistician's read on the Series? "I'm going to say Tampa in six," Lackritz said with a chuckle. "But if I was that smart, I'd have already put my money down on it."

-- Greg Johnson

Photo: The Sports Pit, a month after it opened in 2007 at Harrah's Las Vegas. Credit: Harrah's Las Vegas