The sportsbooks of Las Vegas use a daily schedule to organize each day’s games in every matchup. This pertains to any event: college and professional football; college and professional basketball; baseball; college and professional hockey; boxing matches; golf matches; NASCAR races; tournaments, playoffs, any event in which there is betting action.

Each side of an event is assigned a betting number with the time the event is scheduled to start, the odds for the favorite, and when appropriate, a Total and money line. When placing your bet at a sportsbook, the clerks at the counters, (ticket-writers), try to be helpful. When there are long lines and a lot of people waiting to place their bets, it helps them and you to understand how to get the right bet on the right team.

First of all, you must know the number assigned to the team of your choice. A typical football matchup will look like this:

42 10:00 a.m. Denver 42.5

If you wanted to win $100 betting on Green Bay, you would tell the clerk, "Please give me team #43 to win $100." The clerk would ask you if you wanted to bet $100 or win $100. If you respond, "win $100," then you would be informed that you needed to actually bet $110 to win $100 in order to pay the sport book’s commission (vigorish, vig, or juice).

To bet on the Total (Over/Under), you’d say, "game 42/43 Over (or Under) to win $100, and you would also have to lay $110 to win $100.

If you wanted Denver to win straight-up, on the money line, you’d say "money-line, team #42 for $100." There is no vig on a money-line bet.

Always check your ticket

This can’t be emphasized enough. Legion are the horror stories of the gamblers who bet their games and thought they held winning tickets, only to go to the window to cash and discover that they had something other than their winning bet. This isn’t a conspiracy. It is a mistake. The writer may have misunderstood you, been distracted, in a hurry, sleepless, whatever. You may have given the wrong number.

This is especially crucial when things are the busiest, like 9-10 a.m. Sunday mornings of the NFL season, Super Bowl Sunday weekend, NCAA Tournament time, or any other time there is a line with lots of impatient people looking to get their bets in prior to game time.

The time and place to correct any error is when the ticket is purchased, not after the contest is over. You may have wanted the Broncos, but you gave the clerk the wrong number and wound up with the Packers, or some future bet on David Duval to win all four major golf tournaments.

If you get a wrong team on your ticket, inform the clerk immediately. The wrong ticket will be voided and a correct one issued. Again, at the risk of being redundant, always check your ticket at the time of purchase.

One further note on the rotation schedule. For the last 15 years or so, the Jim Feist organization has published the widely-used "Nevada Sports Schedule." 1999 saw the acceptance by some properties of the Don Best schedule, with different rotation numbers. There is also another schedule printed by Doc’s Enterprises in Wisconsin, along with one or two others that go virtually ignored.

The problem for you, the bettor, is that you must know which schedule your sportsbook is using in order to give them the games you really want. Game #153 might be the Milwaukee Bucks on Don Best, and the Boston Celtics for the Nevada Sports Schedule. When in Las Vegas, each sportsbook prints up a daily sheet listing all games for that day, plus future bets. You can’t go wrong if you grab a rotation sheet for each property.