Post-Tribune columnist Jerry Davich talks with Chicago Bears legend Brian Urlacher at the new FanDuel Sportsbook inside Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City. (Jerry Davich / Post-Tribune)
Betting tickets list the maximum payout for the amount wagered. (Jerry Davich / Post-Tribune)
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Brian Urlacher enjoyed a moment of solitude until I interrupted it.
I stood next to him cradling a new football and old-fashioned assertiveness.
“Hi Brian, my name is Jerry,” I said.
He turned to me with a smile, not a scowl as I feared.
On Sept. 5, the Hall of Fame middle linebacker sat at a table inside the new FanDuel Sportsbook at Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City. A few minutes later, the Chicago Bears legend would place the casino’s ceremonial first sports wager, betting $54 in honor of his jersey number.
“I took the Bears,” Urlacher playfully announced.
He picked the Bears (3-point favorites) to beat the Green Bay Packers that night, the game that opened the 100th NFL season. He would lose that bet.
A few minutes later, I placed the same straight bet for the Bears. My $20 wager had a maximum payout of $31.75, my slip stated. I lost, too.
As I told a casino employee, I’ve waited more than 35 years to place a legal bet in Indiana on a sporting event. In the 1980s, I would fool around with “football cards,” sold to me on the sly by an old guy named Al who hung out at a Chesterton tavern.
“Hey Jerry, you want a card this week?” he’d whisper to me inside my family’s restaurant next door.
Al the bookie was just an old man with time on his hands and money in his pocket, neither of which I had at that time in my life. So I tried guessing the winners of NFL games, against the point spread, and then eagerly watched the scores.
I rarely won, but it made the otherwise boring or meaningless games more exciting. This, in a nutshell, is how I view legal sports wagering in this state. For casual fans like me, not gambling fanatics, these now legal bets can be fun, exciting, and possibly lucrative if you’re that good or that lucky.
Fans and gamblers alike can place bets on up to 19 professional and Division I sports, everything from cricket to football. Even our governor, who signed the new gaming law in May, placed a sports bet Sept. 1, the first formal day of legal sports betting.
This gaming opportunity is all new for Hoosiers, as well as for residents of neighboring states — mostly from nearby Michigan, according to my informal survey — who flooded into the Blue Chip that day.
“It’s a short half-hour drive from my home to this kiosk,” a fan told me after using one of the sportsbook’s 13 self-service betting kiosks.
The facility features five betting windows, 13 video displays, two sports tickers, and cozy seating for fans interested in watching the games. Think of the TV monitors as slot machines with live-action sports replacing cherries, gold bars and number 7s.
The sportsbook replaces the casino’s nightclub, It’s Vegas, Baby!, adjacent to The Game, Blue Chip’s sports bar. Blue Chip’s parent company, Boyd Gaming, has a corporate agreement with FanDuel, an online sports gaming destination with millions of customers from nearly every state. (The firm offers novice gamblers a betting guide at www.fanduel.com/sports-betting-strategy.)
For example, straight betting (like I did) is a simple wager on one selection to win. It’s different than spread betting, a wager on the point, goal or run spread. When making a spread wager, the team you bet on must cover or beat the spread.
Many of the fans I spoke with placed “futures” bets on long-term events, such as the Super Bowl, which generally won’t have a result for many weeks or months. Most gaming fans know what they’re doing in a sportsbook, whether it’s at the Blue Chip or at Ameristar East Chicago or The Book at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond.
Casual fans will have to learn the ropes, and it can be a costly experience. I recommend first making small wagers while better understanding this new form of entertainment in Northwest Indiana.
Gambling, I believe, is our nation’s true national pastime, with Indiana becoming the 13th state to legalize sports betting after a 1992 federal ban was struck down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ever since that landmark reversal, casinos have been betting heavily on sports wagering. It’s just another jackpot for these gaming companies.
That jackpot will become even bigger when online wagers are expected to be available later this year or early next year. This is when I’ll be even more tempted to place dumb bets with my smartphone.
Urlacher, 41, spoke favorably of sports betting when reporters blitzed him with mostly predictable questions after he placed his bet. (Watch a video of Urlacher being interviewed on my Facebook page.)
Yes, a few reporters asked Urlacher about his now-famous head of hair after a career of bald-headed glory. Yes, he politely answered them.
Contrary to his public image of being terse with such repetitive questions, Urlacher was polite, friendly and personable with everyone who approached him, including me. He happily signed that football I brought, for my son-in-law, and he reflexively posed with me for a fast photo.
I had a list of questions to ask Urlacher about his career, his retirement, and his views on other subjects beyond football. While watching him field dozens of other questions, I simply didn’t want to bother him any longer. So I asked him something he hopefully doesn’t get asked too often.
“Can you still return a punt?” I asked, referring to his touchdown-scoring college football days at the University of New Mexico.
Urlacher paused for a second and smiled.
“I can still catch ‘em,” he replied.
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