Wednesday, July 21, 2004 | 10:06 a.m.
Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Wednesday. Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or [email protected].
June 30 -- Worst things about Vegas betting.
July 7 -- Future books for the World Series.
July 14 -- Games of the year in football.
Today -- Over/unders on wins in NFL season.
Next week -- Oddsmakers gear up for football season.
Credit French Canadian songstress Celine Dion, of all people, with an assist in kick-starting a recently launched sports betting advisory business.
Oui, sacre bleu!
Patrick Bartucci, a senior bartender at Spago in the Forum Shops at Caesars, says the pop diva's show at the nearby Colosseum provides him with a steady supply of potential clients for his fledgling handicapping service.
"A group of couples will come in before Celine," Bartucci said. "Maybe the women want to sit around and talk about Celine, but the men want to get another round of drinks and talk football.
"And, of course, they're interested in betting. It gives me an opportunity to get some business cards in circulation."
A new day, indeed.
Known as the "resident handicapper" at Spago, for four years Bartucci has been serving up sports betting advice along with the restaurant's smoked salmon pizza and boutique California merlots.
But he never considered launching a formal handicapping service until late in last year's football season.
Some high-rolling sports bettors who frequented Spago, impressed by Bartucci's ability to beat the point spread in National Football League and Pac-10 games, began to pay Bartucci for his gambling counsel.
"When that happened, it was inspirational to me," Bartucci said the other day in the sports book at Caesars Palace. "I thought, I can do this."
Even before moving to Las Vegas, Bartucci had developed a loyal following as a sports handicapper -- although it came more by happenstance than by design.
While growing up in the Philadelphia area, Bartucci was always more concerned with finding soft betting lines than soft pretzels.
When he moved to the Carolinas after earning a business degree from Bloomsburg University, he found himself surrounded by football fans wildly excited about this new team called the Panthers. But he continued to look at the game with a gambler's steely eye, forging a reputation as a "go-to guy" for sports betting advice among friends and colleagues.
He had moved to the Southeast for a job in the field of high-risk insurance -- which, in another bit of happenstance, gave him access to a number of NASCAR crews. He parlayed his newfound NASCAR knowledge into some success betting on motor sports.
Until then, Bartucci, a city guy, an avowed Eagles fan, had dismissed stock-car racing as a "redneck" sport. ("Once you have action on it, everything changes," he says, a gambler's credo if ever there was one.)
By that time, Bartucci was e-mailing a free weekly sports betting tip sheet to hundreds of "subscribers" hoping to tune in to his expertise on football, golf and auto racing.
By this summer, his e-mail list was up to 1,500 people, he said.
Still, Bartucci is entering his new venture with a tight grip on the reality of the sports handicapping business.
Charging $299 for a season's worth of football picks, Bartucci said he hopes to attract 300 paying customers and that he's "20 percent of the way there."
This places him firmly in the camp of the little guy trying to carve out a niche in Las Vegas sports betting, and far from the Saturday morning cable TV maniacs selling "locks of the year" -- a scene for which Bartucci harbors a healthy distaste.
"I know there are a lot of shysters in the business, and I don't want to be a part of that," Bartucci said. "I don't want to be that guy screaming on the TV or the radio, selling tonight's game for $99.99. I think guys like that ruin it for the industry.
"I had a really good football season last year, but I know I can't reach that level every year. ... I will lose (sometimes). Anyone who says they can hit 70, 80 percent (winners) consistently is full of (malarkey). But I believe with a lot of hard work, 55 to 60 percent is possible."
Like many Las Vegas sports bettors, Bartucci feels a tinge of nostalgia for the freewheeling ways of years past. It's no secret that much of the big sports betting action has moved offshore, and that brings on mixed feelings for Bartucci.
"I think guys like us got here too late," he told me. "I long for the old days, when the environment was more conducive to 'maverick' profitability. ... But the times have changed. Only two roads: adapt to your environment or change it."
There's still money to be made betting sports in Las Vegas, Bartucci said. You can either cry about how it difficult it is, or you can go out and get it.
"I don't know where all this is going," Bartucci said. "In five or 10 years, will I be known as one of the premier handicappers in town?
"What I am hoping for, is when people (sports bettors) do their research, I would like to be one of the guys that everyone looks to, to see what they're thinking."
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