LAS VEGAS — Tigers slugger Cecil Fielder entered the last regular-season game in 1990 with 49 home runs. The Caesars Palace sportsbook had posted a seasonlong MLB proposition of 50½ dingers.
George Foster had last cracked the 50 barrier with 52 for the Reds in 1977.
Like clockwork, the sports-betting-radio figure kept buying “NO” tickets that summer. Vinny Magliulo, who ran that book, spreads his right index finger half an inch from the thumb and says, “His stack was this thick.”
Fielder belted No. 50 in the fourth inning. In the eighth, he jacked No. 51 into that Bronx evening.
At Caesars, the radio guy froze, expensive bookmarks in his paw.
Today, Magliulo (pronounced mah-lee-EW-low) slowly shakes his noggin.
“One of the worst bad beats I’ve ever seen,” he said. “He just took those tickets away. Sad souvenirs.”
At a WrestleMania IX news conference at Caesars in 1993, Magliulo provided even odds, “for entertainment purposes,” on a tag-team match. Fifteen minutes later, a commotion headed toward his office.
“It’s Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Savage, full of Spandex,” Magliulo said. “The 6-6 monster Hulk, and Macho Man swinging a Slim Jim like a whip. They’re yelling, ‘We want the oddsman! NOW!’
“There’s lights. A camera. ‘Where is he!?!’ I said, You just missed him, that way!”
They vanished.
Magliulo also does Robert De Niro better than De Niro. Sitting box one night at the Barbary Coast, a craps player snuck regular peeks. “The Deer Hunter” was playing everywhere.
The man nudged his wife, pointed at Magliulo. As Magliulo presented a marker to another player, that man tapped Magliulo’s shoulder.
“Hey, are you . . .”
“Shhh, I’m researching a role.”
As Magliulo returned to his perch, the man said, “I KNEW it!”
Class
Magliulo, 68, has witnessed enough bad beats, roller-coaster drama and high-wire tension to fill an inch-thick memoir.
To highlight his prolific career, he will be inducted into the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame on Aug. 7 at a black-tie affair in Circa’s Galaxy Ballroom that will cap the four-day BetBash 2026.
“He has added class,” Vegas legend and fellow Hall of Famer Roxy Roxborough said, “to an industry sorely lacking in it.”
It started in the summer of 1971 in Brooklyn, where his parents let him attend a hoops camp at the high school he’d attend in the fall or spend it with uncle Dominic in Las Vegas.
Thirteen-year-old Vinny didn’t hesitate. At the curb of McCarran International Airport, Dom rolled up in his blue late-model Cadillac Fleetwood and guided his godson on a tour of the Strip.
There’s Caesars Palace and its fountains.
“Boy, that’s something!” Vinny said. “I’m gonna work there someday.”
Details
Dominic flourished on the drums, with a nightly gig atop the Landmark and regular sessions all over town, including the El Cortez.
Via his uncle, Vinny met Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Joan Rivers, and he and Dom once dined with Tony Bennett.
“I fell in love with Vegas, knew my destiny would be Fremont Street, not Wall Street,” Magliulo said. “The energy, the opportunity . . . and I loved the gambling business.”
His many uncles schooled Vinny early, at Aqueduct and Belmont, on exactas and daily doubles. Vincent, his supermarket-managing father, showed him the art of managing people.
Michael Gaughan showed Vinny something, too. The son of Vegas pillar Jackie Gaughan, who owned the El Cortez, Michael and Dominic were tight.
At dinner, Michael joined the pair. When he left, maybe 30 feet away, Vinny saw Michael grab a cloth napkin off the floor and deposit it into a busboy’s tray.
“A little thing like that,” Magliulo said, “has stuck with me. Attention to detail.”
Golden rule
In ’78, Vinny returned to Vegas. He finished his education at UNLV, went to the dealing school operated by Michael Gaughan and business partner Frank Toti, the rest being history.
Magliulo landed at Caesars Palace, as its vice president of race and sports, in August 1986, his home for 14 years.
“I stood in a corner, looked out at the room and said, ‘Wow, I did it.’ Fifteen years after driving by it for the first time as a wide-eyed kid.’’
South Point sportsbook director Chris Andrews calls Magliulo “a confidant.” At that shop, they chat daily about injuries, line movements and odds.
“He’s always been very fair,” Andrews said. “That’s probably why he and I have become so close. We have that same vision of the business; customers need us, but we need them, too.”
Treat others how you want to be treated. When Magliulo interviews a job candidate, if he or she doesn’t utter that phrase, in some fashion, there will be no second interview.
Wife Leslee, and adult children Vincent and Ellen, have been understanding as he navigated a career whose hours often mirrored a surgeon’s, and he’ll thank others in his dinner speech.
Westgate SuperBook executive consultant and industry veteran Jay Kornegay calls Magliulo “an all-around good dude,” confirming that Magliulo could moonlight as De Niro.
But Kornegay’s favorite Magliulo scene involves their 10-year-old daughters on a soccer pitch. A casino host who knew both also had a daughter in the match.
He strolled up to them and said, “You guys making numbers on these games?”
Magliulo said, “You’re a sick degenerate! You think we would stoop . . . these are our kids! But if you want to get down on the total, it’s 8½.”