Planning my first March Madness trip, staying at Wynn. Friends who've been for MM say the line at sportsbooks is crazy (45+ mins at peak times). I'd been planning on getting a few dozen bets down over the course of my trip, likely between $500 - $3K / bet. Want to know:

1) Will they let me wire in money ($~20K) and do this all cashless? (aka get to the window and have them just draw down my acct balance to place bets, and deposit back to it when I cash winners?)

2) Any way to skip the line? I.e. if I'm placing medium-sized bets ($5K in bets, with some individual games of ~$2K), will they give me any kind of priority access?

Most sportsbooks offer an app for your phone. Unfortunately the Wynn app has needledick limits ($500/game IIRC.)

Bring the $20k in cash, take a stroll across the street to the Palazzo (or the Venetian next door,) get a casino player's card at the main players' services desk then go to the sportsbook and tell them you want to open a phone app account. Note that this will require filling out a form with your name, address and SSN. Give them the amount you want to deposit and it will show up in the account on your phone. Bet cashless using the phone app (you will need to have Wifi turned off and location services turned on) and your balance will adjust accordingly as you bet.

I personally would deposit half into an account with CG (Venetian/Palazzo) and half into an account with MGM (at the Mirage, located directly across the strip from the Venetian) and not mess with the Wynn's app.

At the end of the trip just go back to the MGM and/or Venetian to cash out. If you are cashing out $10k+ (even if it's not all profit) you will be required to sign some paperwork basically acknowledging that the transaction will be reported to the IRS.

The only downside to betting on an app instead of at the counter is that you won't receive any drink tickets to use. Also limits tend to be lower on the apps than at the counter but I doubt that will be an issue with the amounts you're looking to bet especially if you have 2+ apps and can spread your bets between them if need be.

EDIT: Also, go open the phone app accounts as soon as you can at an off time e.g. Wed at 3pm, not Thurs at 8:50am right before the first games are set to tip off.

Also worth noting that you generally don't have to wait in the normal betting line in order to open an account. The Venetian for sure, and I believe most other books, have a separate window for that. At the Venetian it was the farthest left window

Awesome, thank you. May look into staying at Venetian instead of Wynn then.

- Do you have to be on the property of the book you want to bet at in order to use the app? I.e. will the CG app only work if I'm geolocated as being on the Venetian property? Or can I be anywhere in LV and get bets down via any app I want?

- Any idea what the limits for the CG (and MGM) apps are? And are limits usually per game limits or do they have overall action limits as well (e.g. like that I can't have more than, say, $5K in action at any one time?)

No.

All the apps will work anywhere in the state of Nevada.

I don't know what the limits are for CBB in March Madness, all my experience betting on the sportsbook apps has been during football season. I would be shocked if you would have any issues getting down $3k a game if that's what you desire. MGM is known for generally taking the biggest bets in Vegas, including professional action.

One annoying thing about CG is that occasionally you may try to place a bet and be met with a message along the lines of "waiting for authorization." You click OK and the message disappears. Anywhere from 10 seconds to 5+ minutes later a message will pop up telling you that your wager was either accepted or rejected. AFAIK this is generally done if a bet is high enough to need manager clearance or if you're a known sharp, neither of which should be issues for you, although I suppose anything is possible. MGM will give you no such issues in my experience. In fact, if I was only going to recommend 1 app it would be MGM.

All limits are per game. You can have your entire balance in play at any one time. Obviously once your entire balance is at risk, you need to wait for a winning bet to be graded to free up funds before you can wager more. You can also go add more money to your account at any time.

Also, not every casino has its own app. There are a lot of casino sportsbooks that are part of the same "family" and use the same app. For example, The Venetian, the Palazzo, the Cosmo, the Hard Rock and a few others are all part of the CG family and use the same app.

Here is a good link to see what casinos use what apps. This is current to my knowledge. App stuff starts about halfway down the page.

Also worth noting that the apps themselves are somewhat dog**** and tend to be fairly buggy. Not uncommon to have to go into my settings and force stop an app then open it again to get it to work. On occasion I have had to restart my phone. Because of this I would try to place all my bets at least 5 minutes before tip just in case something goes wonky. Also all the apps log you out very quickly. If you place a bet and then go to place another wager 15 minutes later you will most likely have to re-login.

william hill and cantor waits for authorization suck donkey balls as pointed out above

Caesars has a separate line for Seven Stars which they sometimes open up for larger bets (over $1k). ti sometimes has it as well but is an independent so you won't get down all you want, especially on halves.

but, yeah, +1 to all responses so far. I'd only have slight edits.

Good stuff, thanks. Spent some time searching for info about game limits, and was surprised how little concrete info I could find. Consensus seemed to be that CG typically offered highest game limits, but couldn't really figure out what that was: I saw a couple references to $3K / game, and one other site saying $1K (though that was from several years ago soon after launch.) Called the Venetian but I couldn't talk to the sportsbook.

Did you try calling the sportsbook direct at the number below? I would probably wait until Monday to call as I imagine they won't have a lot of patience for sitting on the phone answering questions tomorrow.



That said you very well may not get a concrete answer. Most likely you'll have to just head out there, get an app or 2 (or more) and feel it out as you go.

Called that number, but it's basically just tech support. Emailed them but they replied saying I have to go to a sportsbook in person for any info. Except I won't be in LV til March Madness.

Surprised there isn't more info out there...anyone in Vegas right now with these apps installed and can tell me what your 1-game betting limits are for NCAAB? That should serve at least as a general baseline...would think they might raise limits for the tourney but probably wouldn't lower them.

I need to know something. When trying to get your question answered, exactly how many percentage points do you think you picked up by making your question bold and underlined

You won't have any issue betting those amounts on the tourney.

johnnyB i have a question. you say you have to fill a form out for a "Cashout" over 10k? is it like winning a slot machine you have to pay IRS 30% or is just reported?

i cant imagine it is 30% or it would be impossible to win at high stakes sports? but you never know look at poker MTTs lol

i dont pay tax on anything ever so i dunno how it works.

Nah they give you all your money, it's just reported. It's up to you to report your earnings come tax time.

It's basically just a CTR.

I went to southpoint to try and get the app and they said Canadians cant use it.. only americans. Does anyone know if all the other casinos will say the same thing?

Need a TR from OP.