Dear Mark, Who sets the line for football games each Sunday? Where do illegal bookies get their odds?
Drew M. Las Vegas Sports Consultants Inc. (LVSC), establishes the odds for more than half of the licensed Sports Books in Nevada as well as licensed bookmaking operations in Mexico, Europe and Australia. It was founded in 1982 by Michael ‘Roxy’ Roxborough, who quickly became the predominate oddsmaker in the country. Roxy retired from LVSC in 1999 but is still very influential among the elite in the sports gaming industry. Contrary to popular belief, most Nevada sports books do not set their own lines since it is much cheaper to pay LVSC a licensing fee for their service rather than hiring internal linemaking expertise. The line out of Las Vegas, or what the USA Today sports section cites daily, is usually what illegal bookies base their line on. Since transmitting gambling information across state lines for the purpose of placing or taking bets is illegal, what you see in USA Today or your local newspaper is, of course, for informational and entertainment purposes only, even though man
