LOOK SHARPE: Viva Very Vibrant Vegas

Sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE brings you his latest ‘LOOK SHARPE’ column…

I’VE VISITED LAS VEGAS three times and loved it on each occasion…

Saw The Beatles’ fantastic ‘Love’ show there, taking place in a specially built theatre, created specifically for it, which is why the amazing spectacle has never yet appeared in London.

Saw a World Title boxing bout there – the fight was terrifically watchable – the audience even more so, particularly the punter who had backed the ultimately victorious pugilist, and literally stood up for the entire contest mimicking every punch as it was thrown by his man and, hilariously, rubbing himself down with a towel after each and every round!

But I’ve never placed a bet there, even though we would regularly walk through busy casinos each and every time we left from, or returned to, our hotel, and spent plenty of time punter-watching.

Casino betting really doesn’t appeal to me, though. I don’t get the appeal, there’s no form to study, no excitement (for me, anyway) to and during the action. But while I’ve been there not punting, friends who have an equal lack of interest in betting on horseracing, happily chuck their chips on to the tables.

Given the excuse I certainly intend to return to Vegas, and recommend anyone who has ever considered doing so to go and experience the round-the-clock thrills and action of the place.

But perhaps don’t emulate one Chris Boyd, a forty year old computer programmer from High Wycombe, who flew to Vegas after selling his three-bedroomed, detached house in High Wycombe for £147,000 – this was almost exactly thirty years ago, in 1994. He booked in to the Binions Horseshoe Casino, along with mate, Tony Litt – wife June was left at home. He donned a tuxedo, and went to the roulette tables at 3pm.

‘My hand was steady, I pushed my chips on Red. I felt nothing.’

The wheel whirled, the ball skittered around – and landed on number seven.

Red.

Boyd rose from his seat, collected £294,000, and flew home, later explaining, ‘If I had lost, nobody else would have been hurt or gone hungry, and I could have lived with it.’

Although he didn’t explain whether June could have done……

Added Boyd, ‘I will never bet again.’

Almost exactly ten years later, 32 year old Maidstone man, Ashley Revell, sold his home, reportedly for £76,500, and flew out to Vegas where, at The Plaza Casino he staked that full amount on one spin of the wheel – also betting it all on Red.

Up came Red.

Number seven again.

Afterwards, Ashley declared, ‘That moment was the best in my life. The money is nice, but that feeling of actually doing it, of having the courage to go through with it, that’s what it’s all about.’

In 1984 William Bergstrom from Texas, had carried a battered suitcase containing $1m in 20- and 50- dollar bills into Vegas’ Horseshoe Casino.

He staked the lot on one dice roll, backing himself not to throw a total of ‘seven’ with his two dice.

He rolled a three and a four,

He ‘shrugged, said he was hungry, and went off to find a Mexican restaurant’ recalled casino boss, Ted Binion.

Of course, big bets are far from out of the ordinary in Vegas – Brian Zembic from Winnipeg, Manitoba, allegedly won $100,000 there in 1998 – by having breast implants- which he kept in place for a year – having paid a plastic surgeon $4000 to put them in place (although he won that back from the medic by playing and beating him at backgammon) — ‘I couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks’ he complained afterwards.

You might say Zembic – a man who also won a $14,000 bet by spending a month living in, but never leaving (even when his opponent began ‘sending in people to take a dump’), a bathroom – had much in common with 33-year-old Julie Bovill, from Hull, who won £600 from her fifty quid stake on 12/1 Wetherby winner Auto Pilot, also in 1998 – then used the winnings to pay for a ‘boob job’, turning her 34A measurement to 34DD and declaring, ‘I don’t know how to thank that horse, maybe I should call the left one Auto and the right one, Pilot’!

But, back to Vegas – where I also saw the Grand Canyon at first hand, landed in it, and took off back in a chopper, which gradually rose above the canyons and peaks as loud rock music (Steppenwolf’s brilliant ‘Magic Carpet Ride’) played out over our headphones, while we loomed up into the sunset, then flew back, down and above the Strip as the lights glittered gaudily below us.

If you’ve never been there, whether you’re a regular punter or not, you bet you owe it to yourself to find a way of doing so…..sooner, rather than later!

Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.