Single-Minded Devotion to the Wagers of Sin (City)

Leave the house at 3 a.m., arrive at MGM sports book to wager on the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament at 7:15 to find an overflow crowd Thursday morning. There is a line more than two football fields long; the guy in front of us is wearing a T-shirt that says: “Good Coaches Win, Great Coaches Cover.”

I don’t think Coach John Wooden took this into consideration when filling out his tournament bracket. But I know how much he agonized over the first televised game, Holy Cross versus Marquette, and while he took Marquette, I bet on his hesitation and take 11 1/2 points with Holy Cross.

Marquette wins by four, and Holy Cross wins for the bettors -- what a relief to learn Wooden really is a great coach.

There are close to 500 people here, 150 chairs, four women and one man over the age of 25. I’ve brought the Notre Dame daughter along, hoping someone down on his luck might look up, think it’s his lucky day and offer to marry her. I have directions to the “Graceland Wedding Chapel” in my pocket just in case.

I was already out a $400 Super Bowl ticket in an earlier effort to unload her, and so I’m willing to stay here and bet all 16 games Thursday, 16 more Friday, and if necessary eight more Saturday so the daughter can stand beside me, in a room crammed with 495 guys.

“Can’t we go eat?” she says, and she wonders why she’s not married.

*

I VISIT with Robert Walker, the race and sports books director for the MGM and Mirage, and explain to him I’m a father, I have one daughter who will be marrying a Grocery Store Bagger and another who picked Notre Dame to win the whole NCAA tournament. He says he thought he had heard every sob story in the (sports) book, but I can tell he’s feeling sorry for me. “I’ve also seen you on ‘Around the Horn,’ ” he says.

He has all kinds of computers in front of him in a control room that oversees six sports books in Las Vegas, and every time someone makes a bet for $300 or more it registers on a screen. Five thousand dollars has just been placed on Wagner. I remember “Lost in America,” and I wonder where the wife is.

I mention the San Diego-Stanford game. The daughter had $10 riding on it and had scientifically broken the game down, taking San Diego because she lives there and because Stanford rejected her application for college. She had seven points with San Diego and San Diego was winning. She’s screaming. In the final minutes it gets close, and while she figures she has her $10 bet won, she’s now going nuts rooting for San Diego to win outright.

There are now 495 guys looking at her like they’d rather enter the priesthood than hear that shrill voice demanding that Stanford yap like a sick dog. Stanford pulls ahead of San Diego, the clock winds down, the ball takes a funny bounce, Stanford gets it and slams it home at the buzzer for an eight-point win. She loses her bet. “I hate Stanford,” she says, well, screams. There are a dozen empty chairs around us.

“Everybody has a ‘bad beat’ story,” Walker says. “That dunk meant a $50,000 swing for the sports book. If that dunk doesn’t go down, we win $25,000. Instead we lost $25,000.”

I think the daughter feels worse for losing 10 bucks. I also fear she might have driven away her future husband. A “bad beat” indeed.

*

IT’S FRIDAY, Purdue has pounded Louisiana State the way Wooden predicted, and he can open his eyes now.

News flash: Word has just come in that a 25-year-old basketball fan from Los Angeles, who is single, has won the $39.7-million Megabucks jackpot across the street at the Excalibur, the largest jackpot in the history of gambling. Excalibur officials say the young man has been given the presidential suite and remains in seclusion.

I’ve sent the daughter to see if that’s true. She wanted to change out of her bathing suit, but I didn’t see any reason for the delay.

*

IT’S SATURDAY, and the daughter remains single. She probably screamed when she saw the young man at Excalibur -- and that voice. Sometimes I wish I had Max Kellerman’s mute powers.

She’s back in the MGM sports book now and is the only one cheering for Notre Dame. Too bad Sports Editor Bill Dwyre is married.

I didn’t believe it when Walker said almost everyone that comes to town for the NCAA tournament bets the favorites, but everyone here is cheering for Illinois. So are the other three girls in the MGM sports book, who will probably be married by the end of the weekend.

The underdogs went 12-3-1 against the spread the first day, and Walker explained that Las Vegas sometimes adds a point or two to the underdogs’ betting line knowing the public is going to ride the favorites. (I’ve learned something 38 games into the weekend.)

We bump into Tim Cowlishaw, a Dallas sportswriter who once a month appears on “Around the Horn,” and he says he has put a bet down on the Dodgers to win the World Series at 18-1. I take it as a hopeful sign, because he’s married, and so it must be true what they say: There’s someone out there for everybody, no matter how little they know (about the Dodgers).

Notre Dame wins, and the daughter is yelling she’s a “genius,” while turning off 495 guys. Then she hears Notre Dame is going to be playing in Anaheim on Thursday, but she doesn’t have a ticket.

There’s nothing I can do about that, but I’m sure somewhere out there is some nice former Notre Dame student who has an extra ticket and earmuffs and who would be happy to take her, and maybe live happily ever after.

Screaming ND daughter can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.