Play to Win

Three...two...one...! When the final seconds tick off the clock at Super Bowl XXXVIII this month in Houston, the winners will pop their champagne bottles and toast their riches. By winners, we mean the gamblers, players who stand to make far more cash on the game than those guys running around on the field in tight pants. Some $7 billion in wagers will change hands after that final play. That's more than the gross domestic product of Iceland, more than twice the market value of American Airlines, all of it bet on a single game of football

Come early April, when the buzzer sounds and the new NCAA basketball champs rush the court in a frenzy, another $2.5 billion in bets will change hands. Talk about net gain.

Then there's the Kentucky Derby. And the Belmont Stakes.

These days, with sportsbooks online, you can gamble anytime, anywhere, without breaking the law. The result? Never before have such huge sums of cash been caught in the ebb and flow of victory and defeat. Time to get your cut.

When you step up, keep this in mind: Bookmakers know more about gambling than you ever will. You can bet on it But if you wager wisely, you won't be competing with bookmakers but with other bettors—most of whom are suckers, guys who throw down cash on the Cowboys because their cheerleaders have big tits. The key to beating suckers? Doing your homework. It all starts here. We hit up some of the foremost high rollers, bookies and oddsmakers for tricks of the trade when it comes to the higheststakes events of the year—the Super Bowl, March Madness and the spring horse racing season—all of which occur in the next five months. Read on and cash in.

March Madness

When the NCAA tourney comes around, cash and testosterone flood the city of Las Vegas. "Being at the Nevada books during March Madness is more exciting than being at the Super Bowl," contends Walker. The tournament also provides easy-money betting opportunities. If you know the right tricks, profiting is a layup.

Round one: Remember, you're not betting against bookies, you're betting against other bettors. Say Duke's playing Valparaiso. You know that Duke fans nationwide are going to go out and bet their BMWs on the Blue Devils. The spread will soar as a result. "The 32-point underdogs catch those guys off-guard," says Billy of Heritagesports.com. Here's how to take advantage of their gooberhood: In the opening round over the past six years, when the number two seed has played number 15, the favorite has gone 23–1 but only 9–15 against the spread. And when number five has taken on the number 12 seed, the top dog has gone 15–9 but only 8–16 against the spread. Why? When big teams are leading in the early rounds, they let up and take their top shooters off the floor, allowing the losers to narrow the gap. While the clock winds down, you're bankrolling.

The money line: In the second-round game, you should be able to get five-to-one odds with the underdog on the money line against the number two seed in each region. "The two seed will be playing a seven or 10 seed. Those underdogs wouldn't be there if they couldn't knock off a top team," says "Jake," a New Jersey gambler who paid his college tuition by betting on sports. "Every year there's at least one upset." An old trick among pro gamblers: Plop $100 on each of the four underdogs against the number two seed in the second round. If at least one puppy comes in—and that's happened six years in a row—you net $200. If two come in, you're up $800. If three pull upsets—as happened in 1999 and 2000—you're up $1,400. Had you followed this advice for the past six years, you'd have pulled in $3,500. Don't forget to report those earnings to the IRS.

Dog town: That's not the only reason to bet the underdogs. Those smallmarket teams are your meal ticket. "There are a lot of weak lines early," admits Walker. "If you follow a particular conference, you might know more about it than we do." Oddsmakers put their money where their mouths are. At the MGM Mirage the limit for pro football bets is $20,000. It's only $2,000 for college hoops.

Shop the line: We covered this point in our section on football, but it becomes even more of a factor with college hoops. "Say you live in Houston and you want to take underdog Texas to whup Kentucky," says Sheridan. "Your local bookie might give you a slim five points, because all the locals are betting on the hometown boys. But in Vegas or offshore you'll get a much better line." By the same logic you should always be wary of betting on the most popular teams. New York teams in any sport, for example, are likely to get less favorable odds because New Yorkers will bet on their teams out of loyalty. Bookmakers need to alter the line to make less popular teams an attractive wager.

Hedge your bet: This requires some math. If you pick any number two seed in the opening round on the money line, you might have to lay, say, four-to-one odds. That's $4 to earn $1 on the favorite. Say you throw down $1,000. At the same time, take the underdog to cover the spread with a $275 bet to win $250 (laying $11 to win $10). There are three possible results: (a) The favorite wins and covers the spread, which means you win $250 on the favorite and lose $275 on the dog, so you lose $25 total; (b) the favorite wins but doesn't cover the spread, so you win both bets, a total of $500; (c) the dog wins and you lose it all, which is unlikely to happen given that the two seed is 23–1 in the past six years in the opening round. You're basically risking $25 to win $500.

It's no coincidence that the world's most hyped game is also the one most wagered on. "I call it the rule of 10," says Robert Walker, chief oddsmaker at the MGM Mirage Sports-book in Las Vegas, the biggest book in town. "People bet 10 tunes as much on the Super Bowl as they would on any other game." At press time, we didn't know which teams would face off on the fateful day. It doesn't matter. We suspect you've got the science of football figured out. As for the science of wagering, the bettor, laying $11 to win $10, has to win 52.4 percent of his wagers to break even. If you shift those odds slightly, they'll work in your favor. Keep reading.

Forget the Spread: "My primary suggestion," says gambling guru and USA Today sports analyst Danny Sheridan, "is to ignore the point spread and just pick the winner of the game." He notes that in the 37 Super Bowls played, the winners' record against the spread is 31–3–3. In other words, in 84 percent of all Super Bowls the winning team has also covered the point spread. (The most recent exception: Dallas, a 13-point favorite, beat Pittsburgh 27–17 in 1996.) Still with us? Good. Ditch the spread.

Shop around: For any bet (the over-under, the money line—see "The Line," right, for particulars), the emergence of online betting houses means you can hunt for the best lines the way more responsible members of society shop for interest rates. This strategy used to be strictly the province of high rollers, because you had to build and maintain credit with a variety of bookies. Now you can bet like a pro by starting small accounts with a bunch of offshore houses and compare lines with the click of a mouse. The slightest variation could make or break you. "I have one $10 bettor who has six outlets," jokes "Billy," a former illegal bookie who now runs Heritagesports.com in Costa Rica. "The pros are always shopping for bargains."

The bigger payout: Going with the favored team? Not a bad investment. The favorite is 20–14–3 against the spread in Super Bowl history. Based on that stat, betting on the favored team will provide better odds than you'll find on Wall Street. If you think the underdog is going to triumph (always the more thrilling bet), put your cash on the money line, which gives you odds instead of a spread. In other words, instead of getting points, you accept the fact that your team is less likely to win, so you score a bigger payout if the dog pulls it off.

The halftime line: After the second quarter, sportsbooks put up a new line. Basically, they're guessing how the game will end, just as you are. But at halftime their edge is gone. They didn't see anything you didn't see on television, and this new line rarely moves once it opens. There's no time for public opinion to weigh in, for smart money to move the line up or down. If you think the line is skewed, it probably is. "We just throw a number up there and let people fire away," says Walker. If you plan on taking this bet, read ahead on how the two teams might perform down the stretch. (Conditioning problems? A field goal kicker who was spotted drunk at the hotel bar the night before?) Keep in mind that the team leading at halftime has won 32 of 37 Super Bowls.

The over-under bet: This is the second most popular football wager behind the spread bet. The oddsmaker guesses the total number of points that will be scored, and you bet whether the actual number will be higher or lower. The over is 19–17 in Super Bowls (there was no over-under line in the first one). Sheridan suggests bucking the trend. When offensive powerhouses meet in the big game, people expect them to score all night, so the over-under line skyrockets. Usually the opposite happens—offensive teams tend to play conservatively. (Oakland scored 21 points last year, and St. Louis scored 17 the year before.) Meanwhile, defensive teams tend to pile on the points. (Tampa Bay scored 48 points last year, and Baltimore scored 34 in 2001 behind quarterback Trent Dilfer, who couldn't even find a starting job the following season.)

Proposition bets: Who's going to win the coin toss? Will John Madden dribble on his pants when he hits the urinal at half-time? Who the hell cares? "These are sucker bets," Sheridan says. Novelty bets are aimed at clueless geeks who think the wagers are cute. Since there's no real way to handicap these bets, bookmakers can count on getting relatively even money on both sides, so they don't care how it turns out. They get their 4.5 percent vigorish (the commission). "The only year the betting public won money on a proposition bet was when they bet William 'The Refrigerator' Perry would score a touchdown in the 1986 Super Bowl," says Sheridan. "Perry opened at 12-to-one odds to score, which he did."

There's nothing like a night at the track. Beer flowing, horses breathing steam like dragons, drunk guys who haven't been laid in decades hitting on your girlfriend. That said, with offtrack betting online these days, you can play the ponies from your desk at work. Making money off horse racing requires effort. But the payout potential is unreal. One bettor in Tampa won $2.7 million on an $8 bet last October. Can you smell the cash?

Do you homework: "If you're going to bet names or colors, you may as well hand me your money on the way in," says Steve Crist, publisher of the Daily Racing Form and a former horse racing writer for The New York Times. Without a hint of self-promotion, Crist suggests reading the Daily Racing Form (free online at drf.com). You'll need a Ph.D. to figure out the charts and graphs, but once you get the hang of it the site will tell you everything about a horse except the size of his dick (you don't want to know). The stat to look for is the Beyer number, which adjusts times, distances and track conditions so you can compare a horse that's run at Belmont with one that's run at Santa Anita. A horse that posted its best Beyer number in a recent race is a good bet.

Have some patience: Pros don't wager on every race. They bet only when they see opportunity. Unlike betting on football and basketball, in which pro gamblers shoot for a 60 percent success rate, betting on horses is more like strikeout–home run baseball. "You have to be prepared for failure," says Dave Litfin, a Belmont-based handi-capper. "You can put the effort in, and two thirds of the time you're going to be wrong." If you play the odds right, that one pick will pay off big.

Bet for big payouts: "Rather than playing the favorites and trying to nurse your winnings up to $63," says Crist, "play some trifectas, giving yourself a chance to win $1,000." (See our glossary, right, for term definitions.) Also, try betting a couple of long shots. In 2002 War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby with 20-to-one odds. In 1999 Charismatic won with 31-to-one odds. If you had tossed $50 on Charismatic, you'd have walked away with $1,550 on that one bet

Seeing is believing: You can't go into the Tennessee Titans' locker room before a game. But you can check out the horses before they run. When you walk the paddock at the track, says Litfin, "you want to see a sense of controlled energy in a horse. A horse's eyes should look alert. If you see a horse with its neck arched like a chess piece, that's a sign he's confident." You can also do your own injury report. Take a look at the horse's gait. If his rear foot doesn't come to the place where his front foot left a hoofprint, the horse is walking short—a sign that he may be sore or lame.

Darby time: "The Kentucky Derby is the hardest race to handicap," says Mike Battaglia, the oddsmaker at Churchill Downs. Since 1980 the prerace favorite has won once, and only five favorites have placed. Our advice? Play the people, not the ponies. Between the two of them, trainers D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert have won six of the past nine Derbies. "Their programs have used the Triple Crown as their calling cards," says oddsmaker and analyst Bob Neumeier. Experienced jockeys such as three-time winner Gary Stevens and two-time champs Kent Desormeaux and Jerry Bailey also understand what it takes to get to the winner's circle. If you wager wisely, they'll be taking you with them.

High Rollers Hall of fame

The fattest payouts ever at some of the world's largest sportbooks

$3.25 million

In 2002 a well-known Hollywood agents to the stars bets $1 million at Heritagesports. Com that the underdog New England Patriots will cover the spread against the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, plus he bets another $425,000 on the patriots to win outright. A little tome Brady magic and the guy collects on both bets.

$2.7 million

In super Bowl XXIX in 1995, a man gambles $2.4 million on the san Francisco 49ers to beat the San Diego Chargers on the money line (eight-on-one odds) at the Mirage Hotel Sportsbook in Las Vagas. Six steve Young touchdown passes later, the Niners take it, Ka-ching.

$1 million

In super Bowl XXXI a gambler at Thegreek. com takes Green Bay to beat New England by more than 13 1/2 points and the patriots to lose by fewer than 14 1/2 points when the line later changes. (Pay attention now: if the Pcakers win by 14–and only if they win by 14–this guy wins both bets.) Green Bay wins by...14 points! Final score: 35–21.

$900,00

A high roller walks into the MGM Hotel in Vegas and bets on the under in the Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno fight in 1989, if Bruno makes it throug round six, the bettor loses. Ding ding! Tyson knowcks down Bruno 14 seconds in, then KOs him in the fifth. ("How dare they challenge me, these boxers with their primitive skills," Tyson barks.) The bettor's payday is roughly a third of what Bruno takes in for getting knocked out.

Trlking Truck

Bolt: To run in the wrong direction. This is not considered a good thing.

Closer: A horse that runs well in the homestretch. Opposite of a fader.

Exacta: A combination bet on two horses to finish 1–2.

Filly: A female horse. Also denotes a hot young lady sitting in the owners' section.

Gelding: A castrated male horse. Examples: Funny Cide, Liberace.

Lasix: A drug given legally to horses to prevent hemorrhaging from the nostrils. It's rumored that jockeys who dig the booger sugar take it as well.

Morning line: Odds set on race day. Also, a booger sugar breakfast.

Nag: A horse that has run a lot and rarely well. Also, your wife when she finds out how much you lost at the track.

Place: To come in second.

Post: Time at which the horses must enter the starting gate. All bets must be laid prior to post.

Shithead: Person placing many bets close to post time, incurring the wrath of those waiting in line behind him.

Show: To come in third.

Silky Sullivan: Extremely fast closer, from the name of a horse that once won a race after trailing by 41 lengths.

Trifecta: A combination bet on three horses to finish 1–2–3.

Triple penetration: Entry into all three Triple Crown races. Also, a sex act that should never involve a horse.