Vegas veteran Benjamin Eckstein, author of America’s Line, brings three decades of experience to make weekly picks in his “Ecks & Bacon” column.
LAS VEGAS — NOT running with the bulls. Sitting and watching the bulls. It’s the PBR baby!
OK, truth. I was born and raised in the Bronx, in New York City, and the only bull I was familiar with came at the beginning of a compound word, the last part of which you know. Yeah, starts with an S and ends with a T. Now, in the vacuum of known sports betting wagers, we have found out that you can bet on the BULLS.
PBR Las Vegas Invitational Picks
NO S**T! Specifically, the PBR Las Vegas Invitational at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Of course, we did a little checking, and if you wanted to go see some ANGRY bulls, the Lazy E Arena is the place.
For the animals, they have 584 permanent stalls, dirt floors, wash racks, electric outlets at every stall and – my favorite feature – a barn pager system to and from the arena.
For the RV crowd, they have 129 hookups with 50-amp service and water, 346 hookups with 30-amp service and water, and – my favorite feature for us humans – an ON-SITE DUMP Sportsbook. Yup, NO S**T!! My son-in-law is an Okie, not from Muskogee, but from Keyes in the Panhandle, and he knows his way around bulls.
So, went to him for some thoughts on winning some money. We’ve seen a list of the odds, and Jose Vitor Leme from Brazil is the favorite at +350. My guy, let’s call him B, likes Jose, but if you’re looking to cash on a long shot, you can get +1800 odds on Colton Jesse from Ada, Oklahoma. And one thing I CAN GUARANTEE. You AIN’T gonna find this BULL stuff anywhere else!!!
Another Sportsbook At The NFL Draft
Squeezed out a BEST BET Sportsbook for the draft last night, when the ACC went OVER 2.5 selections in the first round. Winning is always sweet, but the BEST part of the draft was watching Jerry Jones sitting in the stateroom of his 250-MILLION-DOLLAR FREAKING YACHT! Jerry World INDEED!!!
An Unwanted Business Opportunity
Before we get to some delicious odds on the Tiger/Peyton vs Phil/Brady golf extravaganza, gotta tell you about a recent business pitch that came into my mailbox.
This guy was pitching me a phone service for my business, yet got the name of the business totally wrong. I mean, NOT even close. But, I could save several hundred dollars each year by switching, like a number of other Georgia companies. OK my guy, I’ve been in VEGAS for the past 30 years. But that’s not the best part. He closes with his name, which I ain’t gonna mention, but under his name is maybe the GREATEST thing I have EVER seen in an email...
BUSINESS PHONE EVANGELIST!!!
The caps are all mine, but certainly well deserved.
Golf Invitational: Tiger, Peyton, Phil, Brady
On to some golf, where Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning will fight Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady in “The Match: Champions for Charity.” Tiger & Peyton open up as a -200 favorite, with Phil & Brady the underdog at +160. Don’t have a date or a venue yet, but would not be surprised if they came back to Vegas and played at Shadow Creek.
Tiger & Phil played “The Match” at Shadow in 2018, and it went off without a hiccup. I was covering the match for the Philly Daily News, and can say that from the food spread to the press availability, it was a Phabulous day. And if you have not been to, or seen Shadow on TV, MAN it’s one SPECTACULAR track!
And Tiger mentioned that the trash talk has already started according to Golf Digest. “Whether it’s Brady saying that he might need extra caddies to carry his Super Bowl rings, or Woods needing a U-Haul because he has WAY more majors than Phil,” this is gonna get juicy. Not sure which side to bet yet. Gotta study Peyton and Brady a little more, and see what kind of scores they have posted in the various celeb tourneys and Pro-Ams. Stay tuned.
Benjamin Eckstein is a nationally syndicated sportswriter/oddsmaker. His column, America's Line, with the Ecks & Bacon appetizer, has run in the New York Daily News and over 100 other papers since 1988. You can follow him online at www.americasline.com. He is beloved by most, when he picks Sportsbooks, and detested by others, when he picks the occasional loser. If you wanna piece of Eck, hit his email...ben@americasline.com.
