About Time: Wall Street Taking Over Vegas Sports Betting

This one’s filed under Natural Progression…

Cantor Fitzgerald just took over a Las Vegas resort hotel with a sportsbook and wants to turn the speculators there into something more akin to derivatives traders.  I love this idea and I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened yet.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Bond-trading specialist Cantor Fitzgerald in March took over the management of sports betting at the M Resort, a new 390-room hotel and casino on the Strip’s southern edge.

“We wanted to turn gamblers into traders,” says Lee Amaitis, the 60-year-old Cantor executive who runs the gambling division, Cantor Gaming.

To do that, the company has transformed Las Vegas sports betting into something it thinks is akin to derivatives trading. By using financial-markets technology, Cantor allows bettors to wager not only on who might win the game or by how much, but also on whether a team can complete its next pass or make a field goal.

OK, I get it.  I like it and will definitely be checking it out.  I bet the Mob won’t like it so much, though.

So what will the New Wall Street-ified Vegas look like?

Cantor’s first move when it took over at the M was to rip out the leather lounge chairs with cup holders and turn the place into something resembling a trading floor.

Bettors now sit in rows of cubicles lined with four screens each. Overhead, a wall of giant monitors flashes the action—though on an October evening, instead of market prices, it was a Monday Night Football match up between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins.

Before you know it, the faux-hawks, nipple rings and tattoos will be gone from The Palms in favor of suspenders and Brooks Brothers.  Can’t wait!

Source:

Whether Bonds or Touchdowns, They’re Still a Gamble (WSJ)