Maybe it’s the nice weather. Maybe it’s family time. Or maybe, just maybe, the long grind of the baseball season is to blame. Whatever the reason, most bettors seem to hibernate until the NFL pre-season starts up again. According to Fred White, Racing and Sports Book Director for the Rainbow – Montego Bay Casino and Resort in Wendover, UT, most bookies in the past used to close down shop after the NBA playoffs and not open again until the NFL pre-season began. “One guy used to put on his door ‘Gone fishin till August 1st,” White said.
Summer is known as the “deadest time of year” according to White because for whatever reason baseball simply doesn’t interest gamblers. He guesses it must be the long grind, with so many games every day and 162 games per team in a season. Summer days are “even slower than a Christmas Day, “ White stated. “There really is nothing to bet on, just baseball.”
When the NFL starts up again, it’s basically night and day. Bettors come out of hibernation and no bookie would dare miss even the week before pre-season – which matters nothing in the standings – for fear of losing a tremendous amount of business.
So who then is betting on baseball?
“Unless you happen to get a person who’s just a baseball nut, it’s the casual guy who happens to be [in Nevada],” White says.
