Forget about betting on the Olympic Games in the state of Nevada

Since 2000, the Nevada’s state law prohibits all the casinos located within the state limits from accepting wagers on the Olympics, the decision was taken to calm down supporters of a congressional bill which had as main goal to forbid betting on college sports and other forms of amateur sports in the state of Nevada. Unfortunately for the state’s authorities, the only way to keep betting on college sports legal in Nevada was accepting a regulation that forbids betting on the Olympic Games, Little League World Series and high school sports.

Even before the approval of the Gaming Control Board's Regulation 22.120, betting on the Olympics at the Las Vegas sports books was not a common activity and neither the sportsbooks nor bettors really cared much about listing odds or betting on Olympic sports.  But every now and then there was an event that captured the interest of some sports betting fans. Scott Schettler, a former oddsmaker at the Stardust sports book in the 1980s, says that posting betting lines on U.S. men's basketball team during the Cold War years was common.

"At the Stardust, we took bets on Olympic basketball, including the USA against Russia. We were hesitant to do it at first, though, because we didn't want to put ourselves in a position where we would have to root for the Russians" to win money from gamblers. Schettler said. Schettler also remembers that his team of oddsmakers ended up listing odds that discouraged players instead of generating some action.

"It was a sensitive situation because the Cold War was going on. We skewed the price (betting line) so that people had to bet on Russia if they wanted to bet at all, because there was no way in hell we (bookmakers) wanted to be rooting for Russia. Not in that climate.  It wasn't a big decision at all, because I don't think many people wanted to bet on Russia." Schettler said.

But when the Cold War was finally over and Russia didn’t represent a threat to the National Security, betting on the Olympics became so infrequent that even when gamblers knew they could bet on some Olympic events, only a few sports and games caught the attention of the betting community.

During the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, the U.S. basketball Dream Team smashed their opponents with margins of 32, 44, 51 and 68 points; however, betting on games with huge point spreads never resulted attractive and only reflected the disproportion in talent between the U.S team and its rivals. During the games in Atlanta, the money lines on the U.S basketball team were so ridiculously high that in some cases, bettors had to lay from $30 to $75 to make $1.

Even when betting on the Olympic Games is not something that the Las Vegas gamblers look for, some offshore and online sports books are currently taking wagers on the Olympics; for example BodogLife Sportsbook, PartyBets, Pinnacle Sports and Bookmaker.com have listed a series of props and odds such as “Favorite team to win the Male Basketball Gold Medal”, a category in where the U.S. team is the favorite at -330 to -450 to win the gold medal, and listed between -33 ½ to -35 points for Sunday's game vs. Ming and China.