| Gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931 but it took | | | | Roxy got his wagering feet wet betting baseball totals. |
| until the 1940s that the pointspread came into being. | | | | In fact, he may have been the first player to regularly |
| Charles McNeil, a Connecticut bettor and bookmaker, | | | | check local weather reports, chronicling the velocity |
| generally is credited with the invention of the | | | | and direction of the wind, a factor which influenced |
| pointspread though, like so much in the history of | | | | how many balls left the ballpark and, by extension, |
| wagering, the facts are murky at best and open to | | | | game totals. |
| interpretation. At any rate, sports betting still was in its | | | | Lured to the other side of the counter by management |
| infancy, barely able to take its first baby steps before | | | | at the Club Cal-Neva in Reno, it wasn’t long before |
| the federal government applied its heavy handed child | | | | Roxy, armed with little more than a few hundred |
| rearing tactics. | | | | dollars and an idea, founded his then fledgling company, |
| In 1951, Congress imposed a 10 percent tax on sports | | | | Las Vegas Sports Consultants, on his kitchen table. In |
| wagering, all but stuffing the sports betting baby back | | | | time, LVSC’s client list grew to include 90 percent |
| in the womb. Then, in 1974, largely through the efforts | | | | of Nevada’s licensed casino sportsbooks. |
| of Senator Howard Cannon (D-Nev.), the tax was | | | | With a boost from Vic Salerno, the owner of dozens |
| dropped to two percent. Nine years later it was cut | | | | of wagering outlets under the Leroy’s banner and |
| again, to .025 percent, effectively launching the now | | | | the man who developed the computer system now |
| burgeoning era of sports betting. | | | | de rigueur in the industry, LVSC effectively helped |
| Indeed, in 1973, the year before the federal tax was | | | | transport sportsbooks from the hand-written betting |
| dropped from 10 percent to two percent, there were | | | | slip Stone Age into the technologically savvy modern |
| 10 sportsbooks in Nevada and the handle was a paltry | | | | sports betting era. |
| $2.8 million. | | | | Roxy’s company not only supplied odds, but |
| “There was one black-and-white TV set at the old | | | | information on injuries and weather conditions as well. |
| Churchill Downs book, and if the picture fluttered, a guy | | | | Later, the service added data that tracked line |
| would whack it with a broom,” remembered | | | | movements, including unusual wagers, alerting |
| oddsmaker Roxy Roxborough, the seminal figure in | | | | sportsbooks to possible betting anomalies that had the |
| the rapid growth of the sports betting industry. | | | | potential to devastate their bottom lines. |
| Twenty years later, Nevada boasted over 100 | | | | Well-dressed and well-spoken, Roxy was equally |
| sportsbook outlets with a handle of over $2 billion. The | | | | influential in helping to obliterate the pejorative image of |
| numbers in the Silver State have tailed off a bit since | | | | the oddsmaker/bookmaker as some sleazy, poorly |
| the mid-nineties, Nevada’s loss the result of the | | | | educated garish figure in a hound’s tooth jacket |
| proliferation of off-shore and Internet wagering outlets. | | | | with a diamond pinky ring and a cigar. Appearing on |
| The overall growth of sports betting remains | | | | television shout-fests such as “Crossfire,” Roxy |
| staggering, with ESPN the Magazine estimating in a | | | | would vanquish the opposition, which included now NHL |
| 2003 article that $63 billion is wagered annually on | | | | Commissioner Gary Bettman, with a series of |
| sports over the Internet. Other estimates run as high | | | | well-argued points. |
| as $200 billion annually. | | | | Roxborough has retired from the business of pluses |
| The explosion of sports betting in the mid-eighties | | | | and minuses and no one knows for sure what the |
| largely was the result of a daily double of good | | | | coming years will bring, but if the future of sports |
| fortune; the lowering of the federal tax and the | | | | betting is only half as imaginative and innovative as its |
| emergence of Roxborough, who everyone calls | | | | glorious past, neither bet makers nor bet takers have |
| “Roxy,” as the face of sports betting. | | | | reason for concern. |