Re: Las Vegas before.....
My dad know Bob Martin. They were good friends. I was fortunate enough to know Lefty Rosenthal on a first name basis. That man know more about sports wagering than any other man I have ever known, and that includes some of todays biggest "touts". Ofcourse it was a lot easier to make a buck back in those days. Unfortunately, I knew his buddy, Tony Spilotro a lot better, but that is another story. Have you ever seen Tony's kid? He looks nothing like Tony or his mom. I also liked the Barbery Coast. Loved the old sportsbook. They were one of the last to use the old board, instead of going computer.
Also from my book:
THE LEFTHANDER
The 1995 movie Casino was about the Stardust, Frank Lefty Rosenthal, and Tony Spilotro. Robert De Niro played Lefty aka Ace Rothstein in the movie. Sharon Stone played Jerri, his wife. Joe Pesci played Tony Spilotro, and the Stardust was called the Tangiers. The race and sportsbook in the movie was not the Stardust but was an unopened book in the Jockey Club. The Casino story line was basically correct but didn?t portray Lefty?s vision in creating the Stardust Race and Sportsbook. Lefty, a master handicapper, moved from his hometown Chicago to Miami, and then to Las Vegas in 1968. He began running the Rose Bowl Race and Sportsbook on the Strip. He was tapped by his hometown Chicago Outfit in the ?70s to look out for their interests in the Stardust Hotel & Casino.
While in this position, he conceived and built a race and sportsbook for the Stardust. Way ahead of his time, he saw the power of a race and sports book as a money machine benefiting an entire property, not just a little niche in the corner as was the business decision of other hotels. What ingenious ideas Lefty had and brought to fruition. Remember, race and sportsbooks in the hotels were not much more than a small betting counter, an afterthought. Even Caesars Palace had but a small carousel of a sportsbook. So small, in fact, players would reach around and change odds on the boards when the sportsbook personnel weren?t paying attention.
Lefty had the blessings of the right people behind him. Lefty, who may have never cracked a smile in his life, saw the big picture and didn?t have to answer to corporate suits upstairs and their bean counters in the basement. He built a mammoth race and sportsbook with ceilings three stories high. The race and sports boards were a couple stories high themselves, reaching almost to the ceiling. They were big enough to require catwalks and ladders behind them, so odds and results could be put in by hand, much like the Fenway Park or Wrigley Field scoreboards.
He installed a state-of-the art satellite TV system with a monster theater screen and a compliment of smaller screens to bring in games and races other books didn?t even acknowledge as existing. He had a maintenance crew assigned exclusively to take care of the satellite system and TVs. People flocked to the Stardust.
The race book boards were the best ever. Nothing in today?s advanced tech age can compare; the players loved them. They were so easy to read compared to today?s electronic boards. The race book behind-the-scenes process started at 6:00 a.m. when two girls typed entries, jockeys, and morning odds into a machine that transferred them to film. The girls would then take the film to the racebook's dark room to develop them. They were actually negatives when developed. Each race was on a 6" X 12" negative. Five or six tracks minimum were produced. Once developed, the girls would call upstairs to the boardroom so a race book board man would come down and get them. He took the films back upstairs to the cavernous boardroom, which resembles a spaceship. There would be a five- or six-man crew up in the catwalks and control room. Two rows of race boards, each a story tall with its own catwalk. The guys could maneuver the catwalks like Tarzan. The monster room was dim with a speaker system that added to the spaceship atmosphere. Where did the negatives come in? Lefty had big projectors installed behind each race board, over fifty of them. The negatives were placed on each projector in their proper order of track and race. They were then projected onto the rear of the giant boards and the 6" X 12" negatives were now projected to 3.5? X 7?. Our customers on the other side, down on the main floor, had a clear, easy to read black and white of every race.
As race results came in, a man in the control room, located in the guts of the boardroom, announced the results to the guys on the catwalks who would open up the corresponding door and insert the results, again like Fenway. To protect the customers from errors, Lefty installed a movable video camera way on the opposite side of the racebook, facing the boards, so the man in the control room could scan the posted results for accuracy. The racebook players had no idea what went into this process. All they saw were big, neat boards. Good thing.
The race board men were a unique crew, kind of like a parallel workforce. Some of them may have actually bunked in that cavernous area. They had couches on each catwalk. A girlfriend or two were rumored to have visited. When I took over in 1983, I just pretended I never saw anything. The work was always done on time. They didn?t need a supervisor. Enough said. Upper management and security didn?t venture up there since it was only accessible by a ladder, like a submarine only in the air. Once, however, the fire department did go up there on an inspection. The control room walls were covered with hundreds of pinups. They had to come down?fire hazard, you know.
The sports boards, on the other side of the book, were a one-man operation in a much smaller setting. The sports boards and room covered about one-fifth the area of the race boards. They were located on the second floor, directly above the sportsbook counter. Two rows with three 5? X 6? boards in each row. A bottom row with another row on top. Each board was on hinges making it a door, in fact. Results and odds were displayed on plaques and cards, again like Fenway. The bottom three boards were floor level while the top row was reached with a big, rolling ladder. Every team ever booked, in every sport, pitchers in baseball, league names, dates, times, etc., were on permanent plaques. When a new pitcher was brought up from the minors, or a fight or any event not on a plaque was booked, we made a plaque for it, right in the boardroom. There were trays of letters and numbers that could cover everything. Changes in the odds, from the sportsbook directly below, were announced to the sportsbook customers via speakers hooked up to a mike and also to the board man upstairs. The board man would open the big doors and put odds changes or scores in their slots. He had a ticker for scores and a TV.
The board men on the sports side were a unique breed also, and much more a part of the betting action due to the constant odds changes. They were also partially visible when they opened the big doors..........
