LAS VEGAS — Last year, professional bettor Bill Krackomberger trumpeted about a trip to Florida that went so well he made a return trip.
He wagered on baseball and college and pro football at Hard Rock sportsbooks in Hollywood and Tampa before certain offerings had appeared anywhere else.
In March, he zipped back to the Sunshine State to bet on baseball season-win totals. Known as “Krack,” the Bronx-born longtime Vegas resident returned in mid-May to take some college football positions.
He favored Florida State under 7.5 wins at -110 (or risk $110 to win $100). His blue-chip betting in 2024 earned him a $5,000 limit, and he slapped down another three grand on Seminoles under.
“Nobody in the world had college football season wins up, only Hard Rock,” Krack said. “Hard to believe. How can that be the only one? Where do they get their numbers from, before anyone else?
“I made all the bets I could with all the money I had.”
Krack’s initial rave Hard Rock review could reverberate here. The Mirage is gone, undergoing a massive renovation with a new 660-foot purple guitar-shaped tower out front with strings that will shoot beams into the night.
Hard Rock Las Vegas is set to open in 2027.
That a Hard Rock sportsbook in Vegas might offer similar high maximums, with enviable Florida-like odds and prices, was refreshing news.
Today, Krack knows the Hard Rock, like so many others, has sliced max bets for certain patrons and banned or barred others.
“Let me just say the blunt, honest truth,” Krack said. “I know people have said they’ve had a hard time with Hard Rock. I’d been giving them a lot of credit, but I’ve heard they’ve cut people off or cut them down. However, they’ve been very good to me.”
Prey
Early last week, Louie, a confidant for 40 years, visited from the San Fernando Valley for three days of relaxation, poker and baseball betting.
My fraternity brother most familiar with casinos, as the son of a late pro gambler, Louie knows all about angles and odds. He landed at Horseshoe Las Vegas, the former Bally’s that is a World Series of Poker venue. He’d soon check out.
The Vultures of Vegas would claim another victim. The exorbitant costs, including resort and other fees, were ridiculous, parking more than $50.
He went poolside to decompress, to use an amenity of this “resort.” Too-close monorail trains clanging by loudly every three minutes, mimicking the “L” Blue Line between Chicago and Grand stations, greeted him.
An elevator had cracked mirrors. Carpets were stained. Sudden monsoon flooding canceled some poker events.
“Poor lighting in the ballrooms,” Louie said. “Just old.”
They charged him nine bucks for a cup of coffee, but he was hardly the first to get such vulturine treatment on the Strip. Agitated, he packed his rig and headed south.
“The South Point,” Louie said, “was just fresher, friendlier and more affordable.”
Peanuts
This isn’t news. The Strip’s gouging of clientele, charging any ancillary fee it can conjure, has finally affected bottom lines. The average being bantered about is 15% less business than one year ago.
I clap. The extreme avarice of those bean-counter beaks, of MGM Resorts ruling a chunk of the Strip and Caesars Entertainment lording over another, have brought this upon themselves.
They’ve tried to extract every penny from every patron, some of whom have answered the thievery by staying away.
“Spot on!” Krack wrote me in a text. “Really sad. They have done it to themselves. In this case, greed is not good, Gordon Gekko.”
Several years ago, I asked South Point owner Michael Gaughan, son of late Vegas pillar Jackie Gaughan, about how his old man might have responded to the NFL (Raiders) coming here and a Super Bowl (LVIII) being played here.
Michael paused and half-grinned, forming a disgusted smirk. He took another tack, insisting that Jackie never would have believed “paid parking” and “Las Vegas” could occupy the same sentence.
The South Point doesn’t charge customers to park in its lots. It isn’t a small issue. Krack reported that Hard Rock, at its two Florida sites, did not charge him to park and that resort fees could be waived for rated players.
“Those two casinos are amazing,” he said. “Nobody makes more [money].”
Krack added that he’s “more than hopeful” that Hard Rock and its Seminole Gaming will operate in Las Vegas as they had in Florida, combining high limits with reasonable odds and prices.
“They’ll start that way, but I’m sure they’ll go by what I’m hearing in Florida, limiting people,” Krack said. “So maybe they’ll start out by having good limits.”
Will that last even a year?
“I would say less than a year,” Krack said. “It’s been less than a year in Florida, but they’re running people into peanuts, I hear.”
Transcendent?
Joe Lupo, the Mirage president who will retain that title at Hard Rock Las Vegas, has vowed that the new property will be as “transcendent” as its predecessor.
That could happen, should the Hard Rock not charge for parking or resort fees, or otherwise gouge patrons for every penny in -every pocket.
Such keen word-of-mouth would spread invaluable goodwill, boosting business, luring Krack, Louie and many others to the big guitar.
Making people forget its address, where vultures nest, feast and multiply.