David McKee

Two things give me reason today to ponder the line of thinking which holds that history is a construct formed by the winners — an agreed-upon narrative that keeps up from asking too many pesky questions. First, tonight is the moment when the historical Ralph Lamb is superseded, perhaps forever, by his fictional avatar, played by Dennis Quaid. The actual Lamb hassled mobsters, went easy on drunk drivers and made Las Vegas Metro into the omnipotent (and trigger-happy) entity that it remains. Or so runs the consensus. As for Sixties mafiosi, they ought to be flattered that their drab, doughy, bureaucratic Vegas branch has been reincarnated in the form of Michael Chiklis, charismatic and dressed to kill. And, yes, I’ve already set my DVR to record the entire series.

Of course, the other mendacity du jour is the awarding of “victory” in NFL games to losing teams, thanks to the league’s ass-clown scab referees. These “zebras” would be hard pressed to call a Pop Warner game and get it right, to judge by their perpetually befuddled facial expressions and highly creative interpretations of the rule book, the latter having left former coaches and players apoplectic with disbelief. Their mistakes are then ratified by the NFL, raising them to the level of fraud. You, me and everyone else with a TV set knows damn well that games are being decided not on the field of play but by a bunch of strike breakers I wouldn’t trust to monitor Detention Hall.

The league, you see, thinks this is a matter of chump change between itself and the locked-out referees (who understandably balk at having their pensions dumped into that crap shoot known as a 401k). But that won’t be the case much longer. The league is generous with information that informs point spreads and prop bets. When sports bettors in Las Vegas casinos are out $9 million just on last night’s fiasco and one betting site is refunding wagers (above) because the on-field screw up was so egregious, that’s a lot of action which could dry up overnight. Perhaps sticking it to Vegas is the real endgame of presiding NFL genius Roger Goodell’s brinkmanship. (“That’ll teach you to bet on our sacred sport!”) But, no, Occam’s Razor tells us that the league is just being cheap.

While casinos are laughing all the way to the bank after taking John Q. Customer to the cleaners last night, thanks to the buffoonery of Cirque du Goodell, this is a problem for them, too. (Congratulations to the estimated 15% of Mandalay Bay players who bet on the Seattle Seahawks.) Casino-issued point spreads lose credibility when the “refs” are stacking the deck in favor of the home team. It muddles their ability to “[encourage] balanced betting action” and parlay-card tiebreakers may have to be set in triple digits soon, at the rate we’re going. Were I sports bettor, I’d sit on my billfold and stay away from Vegas until the NFL comes to its senses … if ever.