Just because a sucker's born every minute, reputable Las Vegas radio station shouldn't put its name on the line by allowing scam artists on the air

The quip by Fezzik in this column was splendid, especially considering it was off-the-cuff ...

If I’m listening to the radio at all on a weekend morning, it’s almost exclusively either “The Howard Stern Show” or NPR.

So a fellow sports bettor had to clue me in to the abomination that airs at 7 a.m. Saturday on ESPN 1100-AM.

This misleading Las Vegas gambling claim was a whopper

Although the odds on their parlay cards could generously be described as mediocre, one Las Vegas casino company ran advertisements on local sports radio claiming they were the "best" on "the planet." Besides constituting an obvious breach of business ethics, this is downright insulting to customers and visitors to Nevada. It's also unfair to competing casinos that offer good odds on their parlay cards, as well as to competing casinos that offer poor odds -- but at least refrain from touting themselves as the "best."

In preparing a survey on the best and worst football parlay cards in Las Vegas casinos, I heard an advertisement proclaiming the Boyd Gaming/Coast Casinos properties have “the best parlay cards on the planet” this season.

Wow! The best on the planet! All right!

I couldn’t wait to bear witness to them, let alone bet on them.

As it turns out, they’re not even the best parlay cards on Fremont Street.

Football props not a new phenomenon

Head-to-head player matchups and other oddball football proposition wagers are often treated like a recent phenomenon, a modern-day corruption of the standard straight bet on which team will win the game.

That’s not so, according to an old edition of the Gold Sheet, the venerable sports handicapping newsletter.

Evidently, football props have been part of the sports betting scene at least since the 1920s — though they weren’t always called props.

Sports books smashing expected football win rates

With the first weekend of regular-season NFL action comes a rekindling of the real national pastime, especially in these parts: betting on football.

Last year, gamblers in Nevada casinos risked a record $1.17 billion on football bets alone, 45 percent of the nearly $2.6 billion wagered in the state’s legal sports books.

Even at the Las Vegas Hilton sports book, known for taking bets on a wide variety of events, the statistics roughly mirror the statewide numbers. Jay Kornegay, boss at the Hilton sports book, said 42 percent to 43 percent of his total handle comes from football bets.